Return Migration Infrastructures of the Netherlands

Authors:

Joris Schapendonk, Sherry Ebrahim, Selma Blanken, René van Son | Radboud University

Executive Summary:

Return migration has become a policy priority across the world, and especially in Europe. The GAPS project is a Horizon Europe project (2023-2026) that investigates the drivers of return policies and the potential disconnects between expectations of return policies and their actual  outcomes on the ground. It follows a de-centering approach to migration governance and seeks to move beyond a Euro-centric understanding of return policymaking. This report is part of Work Package 3 (WP3). WP3 is designed to study how return migration governance is put into practice, including how different actors collaborate or work against each other, and what discrepancies emerge and maintain to exist in their daily operation of return migration.  In so doing, we work with the concept of Return Migration Infrastructures (RMI). RMIs  consists of a multitude of state and non-state actors, the relations between these actors, the  actual doings of these actors and the materialities/technologies that together put return migration governance into practice. These relations and interactions in governance arenas may actually create synergies, shared interests and coherence, but also frictions, boundaries, inconsistencies, clashes and dead ends. This report provides first an overview of the RMIs in the Netherlands by visualizing all relevant relations and processes in return migration governance. From there, and based on qualitative research techniques, this report zooms in on the ways RMIs operate on the ground with two in-depth case studies. The first case studies discusses the roles, doings, materialities/ technologies and relations in the RMIs seen from the perspective of DTenV regievoerders. As part of the specialized governmental agency to materialize return migration – the DTenV [the Dutch Departure and Repatriation Service] – these case workers play a key coordinating role in the field. Subsequently, we de-centre the analysis of RMIs by focusing on the same dimensions (roles, doings, materialities/technologies and relations) from the perspective of NGOs that are involved in the pilot project called Landelijke Vreemdelingenvoorziening (LVV).

In combination, the discussion of the RMIs in its totality and the in-depth case studies foreground dynamic and complex realities shaping the Dutch RMIs. In other words, return  migration governance should not be considered a linear and closed system. While fast-track  forced removals do occur in the Netherlands, there are various feedback loops and escape  routes in the system. Moreover, the forged relations across different levels of governance (local-national-European), and between governmental and non-governmental actors, create synergies, overlapping responsibilities as well as frictions. The complexity involved should not be misread as a policy dysfunction per se, as a large share of it is an inherent part of the migration governance architecture (e.g. the involvement of NGOs offering return assistance). The polycentric composition also allows for informal practices and information sharing across partners, making the landscape for the position of migrants more diffuse.

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