Introduction

Abstract

Immigration and its economic, political, cultural, and social consequences have recently emerged as increasingly contentious issues in Europe. Although some European countries have long histories of welcoming immigrants, the relative cultural and ethnic homogeneity of many others has thrown recent increases in foreign-born populations into sharp relief. European anxiety over immigrant integration has also increased with the recognition that unauthorized immigration has been a persistent and seemingly intractable challenge for the continent’s immigration policies. While quantifying irregular migration in Europe remains an exercise in “counting the uncountable” (Vogel et al. 2011), recent research estimated the EU’s stock of irregular migrants to be between two and four million (Triandafyllidou 2009; Vogel et al. 2011).