Undocumented Migrants and their Everyday Lives

Front matter

IMISCOE Researc h Series

Jussi S. Jauhiainen Miriam Tedeschi

Undocumented Migrants and their Everyday Lives

Preface

We have been touched by the situations of the various undocumented migrants we have met over the years. We have come to know friendly, courageous, and optimistic people who, despite the challenges and hardships they face in their everyday lives, have a positive outlook on the future. We have also met many desperate people and felt helpless to alleviate their distress. We hope that our study will perhaps contribute to improving their situations and those of other undocumented migrants, now and in the years ahead. We were deeply moved by their life stories, despite our methodological choices necessitating us keeping a certain distance from them. Ultimately, researchers and undocumented migrants are all human beings with similar desires: to live good lives with their families and friends; work productively for the good of themselves, their neighbours, and their societies; and enjoy the small pleasures of life; however, we feel that, as researchers, our lives are privileged.

We particularly wish to express our thanks to the many people who supported this research. Firstly, we are immensely grateful to all the undocumented migrants who shared information with us about their everyday lives by answering our survey, allowing us to observe them, and revealing their hopes and concerns. In addition, experts and workers in both government and non-government organisations (NGOs) — particularly, the Helsinki Deaconess Institute, the Finnish Red Cross, and Global Clinic — helped us by sharing their experiences and making us aware of issues we were unfamiliar with. In addition, Global Clinic, Sininauhasäätiö, and Kaikkien Naisten Talo, among others, gave us insight into the impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic on undocumented migrants in Finland. Secondly, we particularly wish to thank the people who provided us with direct access to undocumented migrants in Finland and informed them about our research. Thirdly, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose useful and insightful comments and suggestions greatly helped in improving the quality and clarity of the book. Finally, we acknowledge the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. This research was vi Preface made possible by the financial support of the research consortium of Urbanisation, Mobilities and Immigration (URMI; grant number 303 617), which opened up new worlds to us. Furthermore, we acknowledge the help of various translators and research assistants who assisted with the processing and analysing of the survey data.

Turku, Finland Jussi S. Jauhiainen December 2020 Miriam Tedeschi

Contents

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Chapter 1 A) Introduction Cheek for 1.1 Purpose and Outline of the Book

Undocumented Migrants and their Everyday Lives: The Case of Finland outlines the situations of undocumented migrants in the late 2010s and the beginning of the 2020s. The main empirical context of the book is Finland and we focused on the everyday lives of people who never had, or had lost, the legal right to reside in the country. The themes connect to a broad geographical scope, ranging from individual and local challenges, opportunities, and practices in communities and municipalities, to national, political, and societal issues regarding undocumented migrants in the EU and globally. We conducted completely new research about undocumented migrants’ everyday lives and circumstances, especially with regard to the post- 2015 situation and during the COVID-19 pandemic, obtaining results that reached beyond Finland and the EU.

We chose to study asylum-related migrants in particular (for the concept, see Jauhiainen et al. 2019: 19-26). Some had experienced fear, persecution, and danger in their countries of origin, whereas others had economic reasons for leaving their home countries. Due to their inability to use legal labour migration channels to reach the EU, many attempted to seek asylum, albeit unsuccessfully. The majority of these people moved in and out the asylum process, making it hard to distinguish when, exactly, their situations were legal/illegal. Ultimately, they failed to gain admission through the official legal process and were supposed to leave the country (in this case, Finland); however, they did not leave and became undocumented migrants. We specifically focused on rejected asylum seekers, but also studied undocumented migrants who came to Finland without going through the asylum process.

Over the past few years, tightening legislation has made the lives of undocumented migrants increasingly difficult in Finland, as well as in many other EU member states and elsewhere. Nevertheless, many of them find Finland safe and secure—a country in which they can try to rebuild their lives, find jobs, and sustain their families. Ultimately, they have no desire to leave (see Sect. 4.7), despite

© The Author(s) 2021 1 J. S. Jauhiainen, M. Tedeschi, Undocumented Migrants and their Everyday Lives, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68414-3_1 politicians and administrators wishing them to do so. Demands such as ‘deport them all’ or ‘please—leave!’ have been unsuccessful, and legislation aiming to make the arrival of migrants more difficult may, in fact, increase the number of undocumented migrants. Migrants will continue to arrive, supported by both legal and illegal networks.

When engaging with public authorities in Finland, we were surprised by how little attention the key stakeholders paid to irregular migration, and how seldom those who dealt with undocumented migrants considered either their everyday lives or the impact they might have on Finnish society. Such perplexities encouraged us to study these topics and delve into the everyday lives of undocumented migrants in Finland, to identify the practices and survival strategies that support their in-between (legal/illegal) lives, and highlight the importance of their agency in actively creating spaces for themselves.

With only a few thousand undocumented migrants in the country, why would their presence in Finland be of interest in understanding irregular migration and undocumented migrants more broadly? On the one hand, we believed it was important to update both the scholarly breadth and depth of recent theories and concepts regarding irregular migration and undocumented migrants; on the other hand, we wished to recognise, examine, and learn from the everyday lives and related practices of undocumented migrants, in their specific contexts, before drawing—and in order to draw more general conclusions. Indeed, comparisons and generalisations can be made for any country, but we maintain that each context is paramount, and we therefore decided to remain true to it. Irregular migration is ontologically ‘in-becoming’, and the studied people lived in-between lives; hence, we wanted to avoid generalising concepts and theories, and deconstruct rigid categorisations and classifications, while describing the specificity of the Finnish context. This does not mean that the results for Finland cannot be extended to other EU countries. Indeed, as discussed in the conclusions of the book, there were similarities between countries, especially with regard to Eastern Europe, which, like Finland, has only a small number of undocumented migrants, who experience more restrictions and hardships than in other Western countries (Dzenovska 2016; Schlueter et al. 2013).

1.1.1 Research Questions

To underpin this book, we asked the following four research questions: who are the undocumented migrants in Finland; what aspirations do they have, especially in relation to their journeys to Finland and within the country, and their migration aspirations, including returns to their countries of origin; what are their everyday lives like; what key concerns do they have (with a particular focus on their agency and the creation of semiregular spaces) regarding housing, employment, health, family, and friends. In investigating migrants’ everyday lives in Finland, we paid particular attention to the internet and social media, leading to the following further

1.1 Purpose and Outline of the Book 3 research questions: how do digital divides develop during migrants’ journeys from their countries of origin to their destination countries; how do undocumented migrants use the internet and social media, and what impact do these contemporary tools have on them. Our study provided a rare opportunity to conduct research about undocumented migrants and their everyday lives using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.

The answer to the first research question (who the undocumented migrants in Finland are) came from two sources: the first official, and the second, the undocumented migrants themselves. National legislation and policies officially define undocumented migrants (see Sect. 3.2); however, the concepts of refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, and similar are becoming increasingly blurred, to the extent that it is hard for authorities, scholars, and the migrants themselves to grasp the changing situations (Crawley and Skleparis 2018). In Finland (as well as in Sweden; see Andersson et al. 2018), the majority of undocumented migrants are former asylum seekers who failed to gain admission through the legal process and, therefore, did not receive permission to stay in the country. Those who experienced persecution in their home countries did not leave Finland because, despite everything, they considered Finland to be safe. Those who came to Finland for economic reasons chose to stay in the hope of ultimately finding work and stability.

The second research question concerned undocumented migrants’ aspirations (which formed patterns of wishes) in Finland. We elected to study their journeys to Finland, their migration within Finland, and their potential plans to migrate further, including return migration. Traditional migration theories see migration as a straightforward movement from the initial location to the final destination, resulting from push and pull factors, but such perspectives need to be revised (van Hear et al. 2018). The asylum-related migration to the EU in 2015 and the resulting situations, both in the EU and the neighbouring regions, showed that multiple modes of migration existed. Often, the pushing factors in the countries of origin were more influential than the pulling factors of a specific destination country (Wong and Kosnac 2017). In fact, Crawley (2010) suggested that conflicts are a stronger determinant of irregular migration than economic hardships. In addition, challenging demographic and environmental issues in the country of origin were influential (EASO 2016). Scholars have talked about mixed migration from the perspective of a continuum of varied voluntary and involuntary elements that, together, lead to migration (Crawley and Skleparis 2018; van Hear 2014).

Furthermore, the single-origin—single-destination model of international migration, including irregular migration, has proved to be inadequate. Instead, various terms have been proposed, such as multinational migration, to illustrate how international migrants across more than one overseas destination spend significant time in each country (Paul and Yeoh 2020). Undocumented migrants in Finland may therefore be part of broader mobility patterns. For an asylum seeker, Finland could be only one of many possible destinations, or he/she might have ended up in the country by chance (see Sect. 4.7). The travel trajectories and geographical distribution of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are complex, non-linear, and influenced by various internal and external factors, including migrants’ own aspirations, the migration and asylum policies of countries along their journeys, and the opportunities and constraints of different contexts (Barthel and Neumayer 2015; Brekke and Brochmann 2015; Czaika and Hobolt 2016). Many current undocumented migrants have been in Finland for several years (initially arriving as asylum seekers and later becoming undocumented migrants), so the country is no longer an abstract space for them, but consists of many concrete places that are either ‘scary’ or can guarantee protection and survival. In general, the word ‘migrant’ refers to a person who cannot stay permanently in one location; instead, he/she has to move from place to place, constantly seeking solutions for accommodation, work, and concealment (see Chap. 4). We analysed how they met (or did not meet) their aspirations, and how they found roundabout ways to create their own spaces for survival. During the usually long and complicated asylum process (see Sect. 3.3), a person can return voluntarily to the country of origin, and be institutionally and financially assisted to return to that country; however, the majority do not return, even after becoming undocumented migrants. The material to answer this second research question came from the surveys and ethnographic observations involving these migrants (see Sects. 2.3 and 2.4).

The third research question addressed what everyday life is like for undocumented migrants in Finland, and specifically for those undocumented migrants who are rejected asylum seekers. To answer this question, particular attention was paid to broader theoretical concepts, such as undocumented migrants’ agency, as well as their capacity to create semi-regular spaces for themselves, despite the hardships. These concepts were tailored to the specificity of the Finnish context, but they corresponded well with the vast international literature on the topic. The studied aspects (see Chaps. 4 and 5) included accommodation (i.e. where undocumented migrants live or stay overnight); employment (i.e. who is employed and in what kinds of jobs, as well as the key issues pertaining to legal and illegal jobs); social networks (i.e. having family and friends in Finland and abroad and communicating with them); and health (i.e. what migrants do when they face health problems and how local authorities provide them with healthcare). The material to answer this research question was drawn from surveys and ethnographic observations involving undocumented migrants, and from interviews with local authorities, experts, and workers dealing with undocumented migrants (see Sects. 2.3 and 2.4). As previously mentioned, the underlying theoretical concept was undocumented migrants’ agency, and how they create new in-between spaces and categories (regular/irregular, legal/ illegal) through their everyday experiences, practices, and survival strategies.

The fourth research question focused on a particular aspect of undocumented migrants’ everyday lives (thus supplementing the third research question), specifically concerning which undocumented migrants in Finland used the internet and social media and how they used it. This was extremely important, since the internet and social media have become an essential part of migrants’ everyday lives. We focused first on digital divides (i.e. access to the internet and social media, the ability and resources to use them, and their effects on undocumented migrants) and how these digital divides developed between leaving their countries of origin and finally in arriving Finland. The internet and social media play a vital role for asylum seekers

1.1 Purpose and Outline of the Book 5 and undocumented migrants in different stages of their asylum-related journeys and processes (Dekker and Engbersen 2014; Leurs and Ponzanesi 2018; Merisalo and Jauhiainen 2020a, b). We also considered the role of misinformation and rumours on the internet and in social media. The material to answer this question came from the survey and ethnographic observations involving undocumented migrants in Finland (see Sects. 2.3 and 2.4).

1.1.2 Outline of the Chapters

In Chap. 2, we present our data and raise the issue of methodology in studying undocumented migrants. This is a particularly important topic, since many migrants live marginalised lives and are threatened by authorities and enforcement policies. We begin by describing the data, which consisted of responses by undocumented migrants to a lengthy (92-question) semi-structured survey conducted between October 2018 and January 2019 in various parts of Finland; ethnographic notes (around 70,000 words) taken between April 2018 and January 2019 regarding undocumented migrants’ everyday lives (primarily, but not only, in the capital— Helsinki); and two short but comprehensive surveys (10-12 questions) conducted among local authorities in Finland in 2017 and 2018, concerning the services provided to undocumented migrants. To obtain supportive material, we conducted 20 thematic interviews with experts and workers who dealt with undocumented migrants and, furthermore, visited various NGOs and public authorities to talk with their representatives. In addition, in the autumn of 2020, we contacted experts to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undocumented migrants in Finland. For the analysis of the survey material, we used descriptive statistics and cross tables, and we analysed the ethnographic notes and interviews through content analysis. We triangulated the data and combined several qualitative and quantitative materials and methods (Flick 2018).

We next present a detailed overview of why and how we conducted the surveys and ethnographic observations, discussing our challenges and shortcomings and how we could (or could not) overcome them, thus enhancing the transparency of the research process. We also discuss at length the ethical foundations of our research and its reporting; for example, we strictly followed the national ethical guidelines for conducting research and the EU data protection regulations (European Commission 2018; TENK 2018). We deeply respected the confidentiality and security of the undocumented migrants we studied, so we do not reveal any specific places where undocumented migrants met, worked, or stayed; nor do we use any photographs, since they could be used as tools to identify migrants and their locations. We always asked for consent to conduct the research, but did not require the migrants to sign consent forms, because they would have been suspicious or afraid of giving consent in such a formal way. We also highlighted their right to withdraw from the research at any time, as well as to refuse to talk about issues they did not want to discuss or to leave survey questions unanswered. We carefully managed anonymity and confidentiality, and respected the migrants’ feelings and beliefs on every occasion.

In Chap. 3, we describe how people become undocumented migrants in Finland and the challenges of using clear-cut, dualistic categories (categorical fetishism; Crawley and Skleparis 2018) and applying them to undocumented migrants’ lives. Our main emphasis is on explaining who has the right to reside in Finland and who does not. The Finnish legislation does not include the notion of an ‘undocumented migrant’ or “paperless person’: nevertheless, this expression (literally, in Finnish, paperittomat) is commonly used in Finland to classify a person who does not have the legal right to reside in Finland. Actually, many national authorities prefer to call these people ‘illegal immigrants’ (Poliisihallitus 2017; Savino 2016; Sisaministerid 2016), rigidly applying the above-mentioned dual categorisation and binary logic; for example, a person can enter Finland legally, but remain there illegally after his/her visa has expired or when he/she otherwise should have applied for a residence permit. A person can also enter the country without valid permission (i.e. without a visa when such is required), or with counterfeit documents, and remain in the country. In Chap. 3, we therefore explain the asylum process from the viewpoint of both the authorities and undocumented migrants. The asylum processes slowed significantly after the arrival of many asylum seekers in Finland in 2015, and it took several years for many asylum seekers to receive a final decision. In 2019, some people who came to Finland in 2015 were still going through the asylum process. Many of them lodged court appeals after their initial rejections, and some also made new subsequent asylum applications with or without substantial modifications to the initial request. While the steps in the asylum process are logical and clear for the migration officials and the courts, many asylum seekers do not understand this complex process and are therefore unable to follow the steps or provide the required evidence to gain asylum (Gill 2016), thus becoming undocumented migrants.

In Chap. 4, we explore the everyday lives of undocumented migrants in Finland, their agency, and their active creation of spaces between legality and illegality, and regularity and irregularity. As we mentioned, there are many kinds of undocumented migrants, with differing demographics, levels of education, and countries of origin. In some respects, their everyday lives are similar, but in others, quite different. Obviously, the common structural factor is that they do not have the authorities’ permission to live, reside, and work in Finland; therefore, many find it challenging to meet the basic necessities of life, such as finding a place to sleep or obtaining work to earn the money for accommodation, food, and clothing. We focused on their social networks, considering the family and friends of undocumented migrants in Finland and outside the country. We also studied their aspirations in terms of their journeys to and within Finland, and why some considered leaving Finland and returning to their countries of origin, while others did not.

In Chap. 5, we focus on a particular and sometimes crucial aspect of undocumented migrants’ lives: their health and access to healthcare. As evidenced by earlier studies, tightening immigration policies reduce undocumented migrants’ access to health services, thus increasing health challenges and adversely affecting mental

1.1 Purpose and Outline of the Book 7 health outcomes (Martinez et al. 2015). All undocumented migrants have experienced challenging situations in their lives, and most have very tragic memories of specific traumas preceding their asylum-related migration to Finland. Some undocumented migrants have illnesses that require constant care or frequent medical intervention, but for various reasons, not all of them visit medical practitioners; for example, many do not know where to go, are too afraid to visit a doctor in a public healthcare centre, or do not have enough money for private healthcare. The Constitution of Finland guarantees the right to urgent healthcare for everyone, and this provision is the task of local authorities. Based on our survey of Finnish municipalities, we studied their viewpoints regarding healthcare provision for undocumented migrants. Furthermore, we paid attention to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undocumented migrants in Finland and, in particular, their access to healthcare during the pandemic. The law is the same for everyone (including undocumented migrants) in Finland, but the local healthcare micropractices (Bendixsen 2018) and public services differ greatly in respect of undocumented migrants.

In Chap. 6, we discuss undocumented migrants’ use of the internet and social media. In Finland, practically everyone has a mobile phone, internet use is extremely common, and free wi-fi is available in many urban places. Mobile phones, the internet, and social media have become fundamental elements facilitating asylum-related journeys (Dekker and Engbersen 2014; Merisalo and Jauhiainen 2020a, b) and this relates to asylum seekers’ everyday lives: some of them become undocumented migrants afterwards, so their experiences are relevant in the context of this book. Before starting their asylum-related journeys, not all migrants had access to the internet, social media, and mobile phones; however, ultimately, almost everyone must become familiar with these tools, and the digital divides for asylum seekers generally shrank during their journeys. We explored how undocumented migrants used the internet and social media, which of them did not use these tools, and the effects of their use or non-use on the migrants’ lives. In addition, we paid attention to the effect of rumours and fake news and information, on the internet and in social media, on undocumented migrants’ decisions and actions.

In Chap. 7, we present our conclusions and reflections on our study. We highlight the key theoretical and empirical findings about undocumented migrants in Finland and, more broadly, our contributions to the academic discussion concerning irregular migration and undocumented migrants. We also suggest key topics that should be addressed further in the research and make some recommendations for policymakers and for the undocumented migrants themselves.

When a person has been an undocumented migrant and survived, he/she frequently wants to forget that period. Recollection is never pleasant, although it may have been a life-changing period, for better or worse. In Western societies, very few undocumented migrants rise to positions that give them the opportunity or motivation to read about other undocumented migrants; therefore, undocumented migrants will probably never read this book, in Finland or elsewhere, but if any of them read it, we will be delighted.

The following section presents a short overview of the literature concerning irregular migration. In particular, the section addresses the topics and the relevant literature that informed the content of the subsequent chapters. Running through the analysis, and connecting the various dimensions of the lives of undocumented migrants, the following topics were prominent: estimates of the number of undocumented migrants in Europe; the challenges that the various definitions of ‘undocumented migrant’? pose; the unofficial in-between spaces that undocumented migrants occupy, defying every attempt at categorisation; the undocumented migrants’ agency and how they fight to survive; their liminal status and how policies contribute to this liminal status; and the creation of semi-regular spaces, and the “performances of citizenship’, they construct in order to be recognised and accepted in the host country. Following the literature overview, Sect. 1.3 discusses the specific context and case of Finland and underpins the analysis of the following chapters.

Any one of us may know an undocumented migrant; however, the majority of people are unaware of this possibility, despite the millions of undocumented migrants who live in Europe and in the rest of the world (Diivell 2011). They often live in the same cities, towns, or villages as ourselves, but we know little about them. Undocumented migrants are poorly, if ever, addressed by national organisations and statistics (Horison 2019) and remain under-researched (Triandafyllidou 2016).

Even when we see undocumented migrants, we rarely recognise them. The migrant might be someone we saw this morning while rushing to the railway station: that young man with a black leather jacket and blue jeans speaking on his mobile phone at the entrance. She might be the young woman with two children, strolling in the park during our daily jog. They might be the middle-aged dishwasher we glimpsed while we paid for dinner in a local restaurant; or the noisy youngsters we never really looked at while hurrying to the mall; or the grey-haired man sitting on the park bench, mumbling something with his eyes half closed. Any or all of them could be undocumented migrants or simply regular residents of our cities and countries.

It is hard to understand how undocumented migrants live if we have never been an undocumented migrant, do not know any undocumented migrants, and/or have not conducted any research about them. Nevertheless, people concerned about contemporary societal challenges read newspaper articles about undocumented migrants and see media broadcasts about their lives, while public authorities dealing with undocumented migrants gain some familiarity with basic aspects of their lives, such as access to shelter, healthcare, and legal assistance. An undocumented migrant without the right to remain in a country (see European Council 2003) has very few rights and must face continual challenges in order to reside in his/her current location. This fact is well known by workers in enforcement agencies with a duty to expel undocumented migrants, politicians who make relevant laws and policies, and activists or compassionate individuals who help undocumented migrants in various ways. Usually they focus on one or two crucial issues in the lives of undocumented migrants and do their best to ensure that these people can live safely. Activists, policymakers, and members of enforcement agencies, however, rarely have the time and opportunities to fully consider the lives of undocumented migrants, especially the diversity of undocumented migrants and how such diversity is continuously changing and evolving. Moreover, they never have contact with a full range of undocumented migrants. This is what prompted the authorship of this book: the desire to provide them with information about the diversity and challenges of undocumented migrants’ lives, founded on research- and evidence-based results and theoretical conceptualisation.

No one knows exactly how many undocumented migrants live in Europe. Moreover, ‘reliable statistics on stocks or flows of irregular migrants, the wellbeing of migrants in irregular situations, or the extent to which they have access to services such as health and education, are generally not available’ (IOM 2020). Still, they have become an important social phenomenon, which cannot be ignored and requires revised policies and interventions at the EU, national, and local levels. The Pew Research Center estimated that, in 2017, ‘at least 3.9 million unauthorised immigrants — and possibly as many as 4.8 million — lived in Europe’ (2019: 4). Removing asylum seekers from these numbers, since they are not strictly unauthorised migrants, there would still be 3—4 million undocumented migrants: around 0.6%-0.8% of the total EU population (see also the Clandestino figures; Clandestino 2009a, b, 2019; Diivell 2011). Despite efforts to establish an effective counting methodology, the accuracy of these numbers can be contested, and it is evident that the recent growth in the number of such migrants was due to the sudden increase of asylum seekers who arrived in Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million asylum requests were received in the EU (IOM 2020). As a result of this increase of incoming migrants and the fear that their arrivals might continue, asylum policies quickly became a political issue and many EU countries tightened their asylum and immigration policies (Brekke and Staver 2018; Czaika and Hobolt 2016), including Finland (De Haas et al. 2016; Prime Minister’s Office of Finland 2015; Saarikkomiaki et al. 2018; Wahlbeck 2019). Since 1999, the EU has been working to create a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and improve the current legislative framework; however, as the post-2015 situation shows, EU asylum policies have in many respects failed. Not all member states adhere to the commonly agreed principles, and not all are willing to share the burden of ongoing asylum requests; therefore, in 2020, the European Commission (EC) proposed a new Pact on Migration and Asylum as a comprehensive European approach to migration, aimed at improving and accelerating procedures throughout the asylum and migration system and ensuring the fair sharing of responsibility and solidarity (European Commission 2020). Its approval and implementation depends on the will of all member states, which is difficult to achieve. However, many organizations fear that this pact would make the asylum seekers’ access to the EU even more difficult and their forced return easier and faster.

The access of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants to the EU (Finland included) was restricted after 2015, resulting in declining numbers of asylum seekers. In 2018, 638,000 asylum applications (of which 581,000 were first-time applications) were presented in the EU: about half (50%) of the 2015 number (Eurostat 2019). In Finland, the number of asylum applications in 2018 was around 4500 (14% of that in 2015; Migri 2020). In 2017-2018, almost one million people (866,400) gained asylum in the EU (Eurostat 2019) and, in Finland, more than 8000 decisions (about 1% of the number in the EU) resulted in the applicants receiving asylum or subsidiary protection status. Nevertheless, in 2018, of the initial decisions on asylum applications, 63% in the EU and 57% in Finland, did not lead to asylum or subsidiary protection (Eurostat 2019; Migri 2020). Many rejected asylum seekers did not leave and, consequently, millions of undocumented migrants now live in the EU member states in illegal or semi-legal conditions. The large European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), Italy, and France) host the majority of undocumented migrants, and many of them come from non-EU countries, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, and Eritrea (Pew Research Center 2019, 15)—troubled countries in which the everyday is overshadowed by various political, social, and economic struggles and conflicts.