Cem had already been in the UK for 13 years when interviewed. He had been politically active in Turkey and continues his political activities in London, although this had caused him some difficulties when working in Turkish-owned restaurants where other staff members were hostile to Kurds. Due to a serious back problem, he was now able to work only part-time and this made life even more difficult, as he had a young family to support.

Being undocumented has consequences in every sphere of life. In this chapter we focus on the ways in which undocumented migrants experience the exclusions of their status and develop strategies for managing these status-based exclusions. The context is of course crucial; status matters more in places where documents are checked or required, which means, argues Khosravi (2010), that illegality is produced and is, as a consequence, situational. As internal controls, such as raids and sanctions on business and document checks for renting housing, are increasingly rolled out into civil society, so too do the sites increase in which the effects of being undocumented are experienced. However, it is not only policy than impacts on the ways in which being undocumented is lived and experienced. Personal biographies are also crucial in understanding variable experiences (Anderson and Ruhs, 2010a). The variation in experiences in terms of personal characteristics and biographies – which can include the reason for migration, persecution and/or fear of persecution in the countryof origin if returned, age at the time of migration, education, gender, social capital – all determine the variable experiences of undocumented migrants. Moreover, differences will determine visibility, claimsmaking and access to certain public provisions.

In Chapter Four we explored the impact of being an undocumented migrant on employment experiences, and demonstrated the centrality of status to these experiences, as well as the exclusion of most undocumented migrants from the more formal parts of the economy simply because these are sites where documents will be requested. We are not suggesting that undocumented migrants do not use constructed documents to access parts of the labour market that might otherwise be closed (see Vasta, 2011; Reeves, 2013).

Lok is 46 years old and comes from Fujian Province in China where he had worked on a building site doing repairs. He entered the United Kingdom (UK) on a fake passport with a fictitious name. He moved for livelihood reasons after his divorce, leaving his children in China. Since he has been in the UK his contact with family and friends has gradually reduced to almost nothing except for the money he still sends to his parents. In the UK his social networks are small and consist of others from the same province in China, mostly due to language barriers. His friends offer important support, in the absence of any statutory welfare provision, and during periods of ill health – and therefore no income – he has been able to stay with them rent free. Lok has worked only in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants and takeaway shops while in the UK, starting as a kitchen porter doing the most menial labouring jobs and gradually working his way up to a chef. He works long hours and has little time off, describing his daily routine as one of work and sleep. Lok's experiences are not dissimilar to those of other undocumented migrants in the UK and elsewhere.

Tan was born in China and has been in the UK for 12 years, having arrived with the intention of setting up a small restaurant business. Above, he expresses the views of many of the employers we interviewed. They knew and feared immigration raids but felt that they had few alternatives – whether, like Tan, because they could not find workers or, as with many of the interviewees, because there were other imperatives that required them to employ those without documents. In this chapter we explore some of the dilemmas and experiences of what Zhou terms as ‘enclave entrepreneurs’ who are employers ‘bounded by co-ethnicity, co-ethnic social structures and location’ (2004: 1042).

Drawing on the North American sociological literature, we have used the term ‘ethnic enclave entrepreneur’ to describe those businesses that employ co-ethnic workers and that are more likely to be clustered within ethnic enclaves, which are areas consisting of migrant groups concentrated in a particular spatial area, serving predominantly, although not exclusively, their own ethnic market (Portes, 1981; Portes and Bach, 1985; Light et al, 1994; Logan et al, 2003; Zolin et al, 2014). Entrepreneurship may be an option for some migrants, where social networks facilitate the construction of small-scale enterprises (Waldinger et al, 1990; Chaudhry and Crick, 2004; Wahlbeck, 2007; Kitching, Smallbone and Athayde, 2009; Bloch and McKay, 2015), and those whom we interviewed had made use of those opportunities and, particularly in their first period of entrepreneurship, this could result in a focus on businesses that specialised in the provision of services to their network communities. However, for some this meant being trapped in an ever-narrowing market, increasingly crowded out by new entrants. Consequently, some of the interviewees were only just surviving financially, or indeed had already experienced business failures.

Zilan arrived in the UK in 2000, at the age of 22, using what she described as “forged documents” supplied by the shebeke. She applied for asylum at the border but her case was refused after appeal and so she is now living as an undocumented migrant. She has two sisters in London and was living with them at the time of her interview. Both sisters, like Zilan, had been active in Kurdish nationalist politics but, unlike Zilan, had been granted leave to remain in the UK. In the 11 years since her arrival, Zilan had worked both as a community advisor and also in the restaurant sector. At the time of her interview she was unemployed and, as a consequence, dependent on her sisters for housing and subsistence. In the above quote Zilan expresses the feelings of many whom we interviewed in relation to their networks which acknowledge the crucial role that networks play, while at the same time pointing to the restrictions they impose. These restrictions relate to the ways in which she has submerged herself within the micro social networks of other Kurds, making it almost impossible to move away and create links with people from outside the immediate community.

Previous research suggests that undocumented migrants, due to their status, are more reliant on social networks than are other migrants (van Meeteren, 2010). The extent to which these networks of family, friends and acquaintances offer help and/or are based on self-interest will vary, but they are nevertheless central in the lives of many without status (Ambrosini, 2012).

Jiang was working in a take-away shop, doing deliveries in the late afternoons and evenings; at the time of his interview he had another part-time job working as a packer in a factory. He had arrived in the UK from China via Argentina, where he had spent time working for his uncle. Leaving Argentina because he found it unstable, he had decided to come to the UK using a passport and visa organised by the snakeheads. On arrival in the UK he had found work as a labourer in the building trade. He had worked nine hours a day, anything from five to seven days a week, depending on what was available and needed by his South Asian employers. Most of the other labourers were Chinese and the daily rate was £55 in cash. Work in construction was not stable for Jiang, which he attributed partly to the economic crisis, which had made homeowners reluctant or unable to spend money on their houses. In a search for a less precarious working life, Jiang had found a job, through friends, delivering food for a take-away shop. Quickly Jiang realised that the work was not secure because his labour was required inconsistently, sometimes daily and sometimes not for a week. Being proactive, he changed jobs and has been working in the same take-away doing deliveries for the last few years.

Hai is one of 17 interviewees (Table 3.1) who entered the UK clandestinely. He came to the UK aged 23 and was looking to see something of the world. The UK had not been a planned destination for him but was simply where he had ended up. Destinations, he said, were a matter of ‘fate’; in his experience it was the snakeheads that decided routes and destinations. In China he had worked on the land and described himself as a ‘peasant’, which meant he had no transferable skills. His experiences in the UK have been a succession of short-term jobs in and outside of London that started with cockle picking, but have included working in kitchens and selling DVDs. He has not attempted to regularise his status, fearing the formal registration and finger printing that occurs when seeking asylum.

The focus of this chapter is on migration journeys and routes into becoming undocumented. There is no one experience of these processes; instead they combine with structural barriers and immigration policies, personal circumstances, opportunities and resources, both economic and social (Geddes, 2005; Hagan, 2008; Koser, 2008; Bloch, Sigona and Zetter, 2011; Schuster, 2011). In Chapter Two we introduced some of the main structural barriers in place at the level both of the EU and of the nation state, noting how immigration controls can in fact be counterproductive, ‘with new controls producing new evasions’ (Geddes, 2005: 330). This includes the flourishing of the migration industry as a lucrative and sometimes necessary business that can and does offer returns for all parties involved (Koser, 2008).

In this chapter we focus on the creation and positioning of undocumented migrants within policy, law and human rights frameworks. We explore the European agreements, international rights frameworks and the role of citizenship as a mechanism for inclusion and exclusion and locate some recent developments in the UK within that general framework. ‘Illegality’ is, according to Chavez, ‘socially, culturally and politically constructed’, something that is produced as a consequence of ‘political decisions’ (2007: 192). However the state of ‘illegality’ is produced or constructed, it is nevertheless acutely felt and experienced in almost every facet of life, (see for example, Willen, 2007; Chavez, 2012; Holmes, 2013; Bloch, Sigona and Zetter, 2014). As de Genova argues:

Contextualising migration policy

Within nation states, undocumented migrants are conceptualised as being outside of the framework of laws and regulations, lone, independent and hidden individuals, whose assumed but unseen presence causes fear and anxiety, whose numbers are always unknown (Samers, 2008; Vollmer, 2011). There are continuous calls for tougher regimes of control, which are proposed as a method of dealing with – and removing – the problem, but which in reality have singularly failed to do so. This is primarily because the policy aim has never been to eliminate the presence of undocumented migrants. The reality is that states require migrant workers, and so what Chavez calls ‘a legal fiction’ occurs (2007: 192) where it is politically expedient to be seen to be controlling migration but, in reality, it is only ‘legal’ flows that states can have any real control over. Moreover, other forms of immigration control such as border police and the deportation of some migrants are used ‘in order that most may ultimately remain (un-deported)’ (de Genova, 2004: 161).

The presence of undocumented migrants provides governments with the justification for increased controls, not just on migrants themselves but on the whole population. Thus, particularly in periods of crisis, the undocumented migrant presence is both the scapegoat and the justification for policies which otherwise might be resisted, for example, biometric checks or the introduction of identity cards.

We begin the final chapter of this book with a quote from Cheung, who is 48 years of age and who had arrived in the UK three years earlier. Cheung describes his experiences of working as an undocumented migrant in one of London's many Chinese restaurants. He had been a driver in China and had met people who had already migrated and who had encouraged him to do the same. He came on a tourist visa and was put in contact with a job agent to whom he paid £100, getting work almost immediately. He initially worked outside London in a restaurant, on a 12-hour day for 180 a week, including meals and accommodation. He says that he was treated badly because his employers knew he had no status. A restaurant customer, also from China, advised him to learn cooking skills and gradually he improved his earnings, eventually earning £1,200 a month. However, at the time of the interview he had injured his leg and was out of work. Although his networks have grown and have helped him to get work, he says that there are only a few people, all Chinese, whom he counts as friends and with whom he would socialise.