Policy Discourses on Irregular Migration in Germany and the United Kingdom

Irregular migration or 'illegal immigration' has been high up on the political agenda in many countries for many years, with successive governments in countries across the globe investing heavily in tightening their borders and developing policies designed at controlling it. It is an issue, however, that has gained in a European context particular resonance in Germany and the UK.

Through retrospective analysis of the policy domain of irregular migration control in Germany and the UK, this important study provides a comprehensible yet detailed understanding of the policy situation in both countries today, and explains how these policy regimes came to the fore and the reasons behind the way in which they developed. Using discourse and policy analysis, this text traces the origins of particular policy ideas and explains why, despite the differing contexts and migration histories in Germany and the UK, their policy responses to irregular migration have converged to the point that they are now very similar. This book is a ?must read' for students and scholars of German and British politics and public policy, European studies and migration studies.

Bastian A. Vollmer is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK.