The Working Lives of Undocumented Migrants: Social Capital, Individual Agency and Mobility

Abstract

Undocumented migration has occupied a central place in the UK government’s migration policy, one symbol being the Coalition government’s controversial decision, in July 2013, to send white vans around the country carrying the slogan ‘In the country illegally? Go home or face arrest’. Migrants generally, but those without documents in particular, are now demonised as the harbingers of all the ills that society faces, including rising and youth unemployment, a declining health service, a housing crisis and as the rationale for attacking welfare benefits. The Immigration Act 2014 increases the sanctions on employers who hire those without documents, by imprisonment or a fine of up to £20,000, while service providers, such as landlords, are also to be held culpable if they rent accommodation to an undocumented migrant. Yet all these measures are being taken in response to a matter about which little is actually known. Policymakers cannot provide statistical data showing how many undocumented migrants there are, where they come from or why they have migrated, with estimates varying widely between 300,000 and 850,000, and too little is known about their working and personal lives. UndocNet, our two-year study into undocumented migrants and their employers, has tried to cast a spotlight on some of these issues through a focus on three minority ethnic communities in London.