Deportation Policy in Europe: Understanding readmission negotiations and implementation dynamics

Removing an individual from a given territory is one of the most severe forms of exclusion from a society and community, which brings up questions of proportionality and rights. This chapter investigates deportation policy and its politics as a bourgeoning field of research within migration studies, and present three research strands. First of all, we review literature that dealt with power asymmetries and the inter-state negotiations of (bilateral and EU) readmission agreements and policies. Secondly, the chapter reviews the scholarship on the implementation of these policies, by centring the elaborate deportation infrastructure that has emerged within and beyond Europe’s borders and the everyday, street-level practices of a variety of actors involved. Finally, the chapter touches upon the impact that deportation procedures have on immigrants involved, by highlighting research projects that trace post-deportation experiences. Following developments in this policy field, we hold that researchers may continue to investigate efforts to externalize return to non-EU territories, the changing relationships with countries of migrants’ origin and transit, as well as their interests in cooperation on forced removal, and finally, the lived realities and experiences of migrants upon removal.