The fuzzy politics of “irregular migration” – from Belgium to the EU

“It was a no yesterday, it’s a no today, it will be a no tomorrow.” The statement from nearly 200 Belgian civil society organisations and figures has the merit of being clear. In an open letter drafted in March 2026, they express their opposition to the authorisation of home visits as part of the country’s migration policy.

The draft bill, put forward by the Minister for Asylum and Migration, Aneleen Van Bossuyt (Nieuwe-Vlaams Alliantie, N-VA, right-wing), authorises the police to enter homes to carry out the administrative arrest of people residing illegally. This is a measure already considered by the federal government in 2018, which was forced at the time to shelve the proposal. Are the criticisms unfounded today? For the signatory organisations, which highlight, among other things, the inviolability of the home and the lack of safeguards for those providing accommodation and those in an irregular situation, the opposite is true. 

Pauline Wautié is an advocacy officer for Ciré, an organisation defending the rights of exiles. She is concerned about the application of a measure originally used in clearly defined contexts: “This home visit scheme is used in a criminal context [where] when people have committed offences, an investigating judge will decide whether this measure is proportionate or not”, she told us. In the administrative context of the arrest of a person in an irregular situation, the decision will still rest with an investigating judge, but with limited oversight from the latter.  

The draft bill provides for the arrest of individuals likely to undermine public order or national security, whatever these vague concepts may mean: shoplifting, working illegally, or taking part in an unauthorised demonstration are all acts that could be lumped together as falling under “public order”. “It could really be all sorts of minor things that the Immigration Office will report and send to the investigating judge, who will have to decide on the basis of just a few words” whether a home visit is justified.

“This criminalises undocumented people even further because, as a result, they are viewed even more as dangerous individuals,” adds Wautié, who points out that this criminalisation also extends to those showing solidarity by hosting irregular migrants in their homes, thereby exposing themselves to a police raid. No legal recourse is provided to challenge the legality of the arrest.

For the signatories of the April 2026 open letter, “a democracy that accepts entering people’s homes as if by force and without effective safeguards gradually ceases to see itself as a space of rights and becomes an apparatus of coercion”, they warn. “This debate therefore goes beyond migration policy alone. Recent history teaches us that what is accepted today for certain categories of people always ends up undermining the safeguards for everyone.”

Opposition from civil society organisations, severe criticism from the Council of State (the Belgian Constitutional court) and concern from experts… the draft bill is channelling all the tensions. For Wautié, home visits are the logical expression of a very right-wing government majority. She deplores the creation of a security-focused media narrative that refuses to tolerate dissent. “Even when objective, economic arguments are put forward, they are brushed aside by rather right-wing ideologies,” she says. Ideologies, she argues, inspired by policies tinged with racism that view migration as a “burden” or a “crisis”. “[In Belgium], the right has really based its entire policy on restricting migration,” Wautié adds. 

In the name of supposedly out-of-control irregular migration, Belgium is stepping up security measures, even if it means operating on the fringes of the law. But what are the contours of this irregular migration that the government intends to regulate?

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to fully measure irregular migration in Belgium. In 2023, a study by researchers Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe and Sylvie Gadeyne (Vrije Universiteit van Brussel, VUB) estimated that there were 112,000 undocumented migrants from outside the Schengen area residing in the Kingdom, half of whom lived in Brussels. In the absence of further data, this figure will have to stand as the benchmark.

Certain statistics do, however, allow for an estimate of the scale of migration in Belgium.

In 2025, the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons recorded 34,439 applications for international protection with the Immigration Office (OE). 6,865 of these were subsequent applications. 25,920 decisions were issued, with a protection rate of 28.4%. These figures reflect both an increase in applications and a tightening of the criteria for granting protection. In 2021, 25,971 people had submitted an application for international protection (5,432 subsequent applications). 18,513 decisions were issued, with a significantly higher protection rate: 43.5%.

The number of administrative and judicial return decisions issued to undocumented migrants varies. The Immigration Office recorded 47,811 in 2016, of which 28,289 were first-instance decisions. By 2025, this figure had fallen to 33,394, of which 23,258 were first-instance decisions. 

As for removals, the figures fluctuate. Data from the Federal Public Service Interior records 5,340 (including forced returns, voluntary returns, pushbacks and transfers of detainees) in 2021, compared with 6,381 in 2024. However, this statistic is incomplete: it only covers people in an irregular situation who have received an order to leave the territory (OQT). The number of irregular migrants who have left the territory without an OQT is not known.

But for some critics, Belgian migration policies conceal a range of shortcomings that contribute to the irregularisation and precariousness of migration and solidarity. In December 2025, Ciré sounded the alarm: “Administrative complexity, rigid procedures, dependence on employers, and the lack of a pathway to regularisation through work all contribute to a veritable ‘factory’ of undocumented migrants. These people, who have often been here for years and are already integrated into economic and social life, suffer this precariousness despite their essential contribution to society”.

European crackdown

“Laws do not make themselves,” adds Pauline Wautié, but are instead made “within very specific political and historical contexts [that follow] the European context.” It is precisely this European “factory of undocumented migrants” that is described in an investigation by the French media outlet Alternatives Economiques, carried out as part of the European Data Journalism Network (EDJNet). As the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, designed to enable the EU to better combat irregular migration, comes into force on 12 June, Alternatives Economiques takes stock of the myths and realities of the migration phenomenon in Europe.

“In the European public debate, the figures put forward by politicians and a number of media outlets are in reality highly unreliable. And for good reason: it is difficult to measure a phenomenon that seeks to evade scrutiny,” explain journalists Céline Mouzon and Catherine André. According to them, the data collected, whether by Eurodac or by the Frontex agency, merely measures police activity, not the phenomenon of migration itself. 

“While in public debate irregularity is linked to crossing borders, the reality is different,” they add. “You can cross the border without papers and then obtain a status, as happens to people who have come to seek asylum.”

Citing a study published in 2025 in the International Migration Review, the journalists note that “75% of people who had crossed European borders illegally were likely to be granted refugee status”. This figure represents a 20% increase compared with the period 2009–2021. “Conversely, many people find themselves in an irregular situation despite having crossed European borders legally.”

By falling into an irregular situation, these people find themselves exposed to economic and social precariousness which, far from being curbed by public policies, is in fact encouraged by them.

“Any migration policy that prioritises border control and sanctions ensures that more people find themselves unable to regularise their administrative status,” summarises Silvia Carta, advocacy officer for the NGO PICUM: “The European Pact on Asylum and Migration, in particular, draws a fairly strict distinction between migrants who are eligible for asylum and those who must be deported, thereby closing off access to other residence permits, such as humanitarian permits, permits for medical reasons, or for family reasons. It is clear that the less access there is to residence permits, the greater the number of people who will be pushed into irregularity.”

While the new Pact on Migration and Asylum reflects a European trend towards tightening rules on reception and regularisation, one exception remains: Spain, which launched a major regularisation drive in mid-April from which hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants could benefit. For Silvia Carta, regularisation remains one of the best tools for enabling those affected to escape the legal limbo in which most undocumented migrants find themselves.

But the openness and flexibility of the Spanish scheme remain “an exception in today’s European context”, she laments. “In many European countries, there are mechanisms in place to regularise one’s administrative status, but they are often very restrictive and do not reflect the reality faced by thousands of undocumented migrants.”

For Carta, regularisation – which targets people already living in Europe – must be accompanied by policies allowing people to move legally, particularly for work, and this “without having to undertake risky and costly journeys because there are no other alternatives”.  

The Spanish initiative would therefore constitute a first step in a direction that requires more pragmatic and humane measures. But whilst it finds itself at the centre of debates – particularly on the right and the far right – it is rarely to discuss its economic or social benefits. The reason lies in a fear that is gripping European governments: the fear that making access to regularisation easier would encourage irregular migration, thereby putting the labour market and social models under increased pressure. 

But are these concerns justified? In an article published in 2025 as part of the European project Measuring Irregular Migration (MIrreM), researchers Norbert Cyrus and Albert Kraler make their position clear: “These objections are weak, in ethical, economic, social and pragmatic regards”. For Cyrus and Kraler, regularisation should not be regarded as a last-resort instrument for combating irregular migration, but rather as a standard tool available to the legislator to prevent the number of irregular migrants from rising continuously.

“When irregular migration continues, this is not a failure of regularisation but of ineffective policies and measures serving the purpose to deter and prevent irregular migration”, the researchers assert. “In order to prevent irregular migration, it is more promising to consider and implement policies that deals more practically with irregular border crossing and stay.”

🤝 This article was published in collaboration with the European Data Journalism Network (EDJNet) as part of the ChatEurope project and is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. It draws on the findings of a survey published by Alternatives Economiques, some of which data has been reused. The original article by Alternatives Economiques was written as part of the same project and is available under a similar licence.