When Deportation Fails: Non-Removable Migrants in the European Union

by Diego Ginés Martín

Overview

Statistics show that deportation rates in the European Union remain strikingly low and are decreasing. However, successfully resisting deportation does not guarantee a residence permit, often leaving migrants in legal limbo-unable to return home yet unable to gain legal residence. The existence of non-removable migrants challenges long-established migration categories and highlights the ambiguities of a framework that fails to meet its deportation aims while clinging to migration control impulses.

When Deportation Fails examines this legal category on the margins of the law, exploring its normative and empirical foundations. It analyzes the processes and legal frameworks that create non-removability in the EU, explaining why, despite the normalization, legalization, and legitimization of deportation, EU Member States struggle to deport as much as they aim to. Furthermore, the book reveals the legal implications of non-removability and proposes solutions. It argues that EU law stratifies the rights of non-removable migrants into distinct sub-categories and explores regularization as a desirable policy to end protracted irregularity and non-removability.

Covering diverse issues in migration studies, asylum and citizenship law, and migration policy theory, this comprehensive study will appeal to academic scholars and those working on migration issues in EU organizations and the non-governmental sector.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198938972
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/30/2026
Series:	Oxford Studies in European Law
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Diego Ginés Martín, Assistant Professor in European and International Law, Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Diego Ginés Martín is an Assistant Professor in European and International Law at the Law Faculty (ICADE) of Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, Spain. In 2023, he worked as a lecturer at Utrecht University. He completed his doctorate at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, in 2022. Diego has also been a visiting researcher at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Vienna, and the Hertie School, Berlin.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction1. Introduction: State Sovereignty, Deportation, and Non-Deportability-The Case of the European UnionPart II. Manufacturing Non-Removability in the European Union2. Human Rights, Non-Refoulement, and Non-Removability-The Mismatch Between Asylum and Human Rights in the EU3. Membership Claims, Expulsion, and Non-Removability in the EU4. EU Readmission Policies, Practical Obstacles to Deportation, and Non-RemovabilityPart III. The Rights of Non-Removable Migrants and the Search for a Regular Status5. Status Formation and Non-Removable Migrants-A Subtle But Far-Reaching Role for EU Law? 6. In Search of Legal Status-Non-Removability and Paths to RegularizationPart IV. Conclusions7. Conclusions: Between Deportation and Belonging