This chapter looks at the lives of irregular – undocumented – migrants in Lewisham and Southwark, examining their routes into irregularity and their survival strategies. Although varied in their social background, many irregular migrants are asylum or visa overstayers. Significantly, from the perspective of integration, they and their children manifest much higher levels of social exclusion than those with a legal immigration status. For those concerned with integration and immigration control, irregular migration is one of the most intractable challenges and one to which there are no easy answers. Enhanced border control and in-country document checks cannot prevent irregular migration, yet the space for amnesties or selective regularisation programmes is limited by public concern and hostility toward irregular migrants. The chapter examines policy responses to irregular migration and makes an argument for extending the routes to regularisation, as well as local strategies to respond to this migrant group.

Who are irregular migrants?

The terminology associated with irregular migration is often emotive and contested, with this group of people often being referred to in non-academic writing as illegal or undocumented immigrants. Finding a satisfactory definition for irregular migration is further complicated by the fact that routes into and out of ‘irregularity’ are complex and some of those who are termed irregular migrants may have been born in the UK. It is important to remember, too, that irregular migration is an administrative condition, ascribed by the state, rather than an innate characteristic of a group of people.

The case of ‘Matthew’ illustrates the diversity of pathways in and out of irregularity. Originally from Zimbabwe, he entered the UK in 2000 with a student visa. In the process of extending this visa, Matthew's passport was lost by the Home Office. He remained in the UK without papers from 2004 until 2006, when he applied for asylum. His initial asylum application was rejected in 2007 and he then appealed. He had exhausted all rights of appeal by 2008, but continued to remain in the UK, as between 2006 and 2011 the government suspended all removals to Zimbabwe on the grounds that return was too dangerous. An attempt to remove ‘Matthew’ then failed, as the Zimbabwean government disputed his citizenship and ‘Matthew’ had no passport to prove it.