Infrastructures of irregularity and bureaucratic violence affecting migrant people in Italy

Building on critical scholarship on migration irregularity and the violence embedded in migration laws and policies, this article examines the bureaucratic procedures and hurdles migrant people face on their path to regularisation in Italy. These bureaucratic processes often place migrants in a state of suspended rights and protection, exposing them to the risk of further irregularisation. The article argues that such procedures amount to bureaucratic violence due to their harmful effects on migrants’ livelihoods and working conditions. Specifically, it focuses on the bureaucratic limbo many migrants find themselves in, analysing three key examples: regular entry into Italy through the flows decree system; regularisation of undocumented status through regularisation schemes (particularly the 2020 regularisation scheme), and the renewal of residence permits. It highlights how the lens of bureaucratic violence, combined with the prism of the infrastructures of irregularity, brings into focus the multiple harms generated and amplified by seemingly neutral procedures and practices, which hinder, complicate or prolong migrants’ routes to regularisation within a broader context of selective and restrictive migration laws and policies.