Children’s Agency in Translocal Roma Families

Peer reviewe

Deportation, smart borders and mobile citizens : using digital methods and traditional police activities to deport EU citizens

Taking the case of Romanian citizens in France, this article documents and analyses the digital methods and traditional police activities used for the deportation of EU citizens across the Schengen border and within EU territory. EU laws and Schengen regulations support states’ implementation of high-tech methods in migration governance and police work. Our fieldwork, conducted with several police units in France and Romania, indicates a gap between the claimed ‘controlled’ management of mobility through crimmigration and the actual messiness at the Schengen border as a result of policy implementation limitations (lack of legislative adjustment to digital demands), poor administration (training of border agents, allocating resources) and political decisions (harmonisation or competing narratives). Despite the promotion of cutting-edge technologies in the deportation process, traditional techniques as well as paperwork remain relevant. This raises questions regarding the articulations of traditional techniques with highly promoted control technologies. While the latter has modified the functioning of the deportation process, these changes do not necessarily make the former useless. In practice, this work is left to the discretion of police officers and ground-level bureaucrats who interpret, create and enforce norms and regulations in the name of ‘the rule of law’

Devised to punish: Policing, detaining and deporting Romanians from France

The criminalization and de-criminalization of foreign nationals is performed by the French state through legal and institutional means in order to increase the deportability of unwanted EU citizens. By policing petty criminals and then instrumenting administrative coercion as a form of punishment, France opts to detain, deport and ban the entry of undesirable EU citizens, mostly Romanian citizens. Moreover, under a bilateral state agreement, France also engages Romanian police agents to help identify ‘their own’ nationals. This article uncovers, problematizes and explains the relationship between state (de-)criminalization practices and the forced removal of EU citizens. In doing so, it aims to respond to the following questions: What is the role of the Franco-Romanian police alliance in the criminalization of migration? What are the legal mechanisms advancing the de-criminalization of migration and how do they influence deportation processes? What is the meaning of punishment for EU deportable/deported citizens

Embodying the nation, representing the state: Performativity of police work in the Franco-Romanian bilateral agreement

The French police and Romanian forces seek to identify, surveil and control Romanian citizens who are suspected to be ‘irregular migrants’ or ‘criminals’ in France. The two states sealed a bilateral agreement to deploy Romanian police forces on French territory: twice a year Romanian uniformed officers patrol next to the French police, whereas liaison officers work throughout the year in several French police units. Policing its own citizens on another state territory becomes part of police work in the EU, a police model encouraged and criticized at the same time