Conclusion

This book, Migrating Borders and Citizenship in Law: Scales, Locales, Themes and Practices, argues that law has multiple dimensions and mechanisms for breathing life into borders. These roles operate at different locales and scales (from worldwide to the continent, or to the family or workplace) as well as through different mechanisms (such as preventing entry, withholding access to resources or deportation). Writing this book has been a layered, intellectual and deeply personal experience, filled with thoughts of my grandmother’s and my mother’s migration journeys in days of empire, and mine in terms of nation-state citizenship. Ours are stories in common with many who start out as foreigners in new places. In law, foreignness is shed with time. But foreigners and residents are not binary categories and instead exist in varying legal statuses at different points of time. In terms of constitutive rules of membership, law ascertains in the first place who crosses borders and who does not, and who remains foreign despite being within national borders. Through processes of naturalisation or free movement residence, law can reduce degrees of foreignness and create a sense of legal membership and belonging, at least for some.

As noted before, Ayelet Shachar in her book The Shifting Border (2020) has discussed how borders have become less territorial as they have become movable. They are no longer at fixed geographical points, due to the application of law and technology to enforce borders extraterritorially, as well as to apply them even to internal populations. Her work ably demonstrates that such a shift has taken place and, the chapters of this book present much evidence in support of the movement of borders, even when people do not cross them. Indeed, that is why this book is titled Migrating Borders, to underline its focus on the dynamism of borders, rather than just on the mobility of people. However, borders have never actually been simple fixed geographical points, as can be seen during the expansion of empire as well as its contraction, and the post-war developments in immigration law in the UK and in Europe.

Applying Mariana Valverde’s approach to temporal and spatial scales in sociolegal studies (Valvedere 2015), this book has selected different time periods and geopolitical entities for assessing the role of law in borders and bordering. The advantage of applying this approach is that one can expose some of the reasoning given over space and time for migration control. The primary reasons for deciding who is part of a collective project (whether nation state or continental grouping or empire), and who is not, are about workforce requirements, demographic reproduction and security of the collective enterprise (whether health or national security). This book has revealed numerous instances where this framing of the requirements of migration control repeats itself over time and across different scales of geography.

As we have seen regarding empire (Chapter 1), emergence of the nation state (Chapter 2) and transcontinental re-bordering (Chapter 3), the functions of law in bordering vary from conferring or withdrawing status, creating exceptional legal frameworks which suspend rights, the privileging of immigration powers as nation state and executive privileges, and the confining of discretion, with individuals holding power. Laws may also remove scrutiny over decision making by those in power. Conversely, law can also be used to set up free movement regions, as well as to provide rights and safeguard liberties. When bordering takes place through law, there are some justifications which consolidate the more repressive elements in law and supress its emancipatory aspects. These justifications are economic welfare, controlling access to the labour market, regulation of conduct for national security, public health and demographic control, which permeate different periods of time. The manifestations of these frames of immigration control are at the workplace, in families and everywhere in society through emergency framing which becomes commonplace in nature.

In Chapter 1 on empire, Lukes’s (2023) work on power and his discussion on the third dimension of power provides an analytical explanation for the role of law in creating a sense of legitimacy. Law facilitated domination through a veneer of legality, even when furthering illegitimate ends such as colonial expropriation across empire. Lukes’s third dimension of power reveals how power can create and maintain the hegemony of colonialism. In this instance it achieves this through the export of common law and setting up of courts and legal training in colonial outposts as well as the use of the English language. It was not all about brainwashing or hoodwinking people; often these choices coincided with the short-term real interests of colonised people, especially with those of the local elites. It is also possible to observe the other two dimensions of power operating in how law functions in bordering. Law sometimes keeps agendas and issues off the table (this is the second dimension of power which manifests through inaction), for example by simply excluding certain categories from rights or maintaining homogeneity in immigration rights through preferred characteristics (such as desirable workers as seen in Chapter 4 or of family members who will not be economic liabilities as seen in Chapter 5). It is also present in its first dimension, evident in action, as it can proactively roll back free movement or externalise borders through agreements (for example, the Windrush generation in Chapter 2 or Brexit in Chapter 3). In emergencies it contains or excludes people through overt acts (Chapter 6). Through each chapter in this book, we can see the close correspondence of law, bordering and the various dimensions of power (evident in action and inaction, as well as more insidious manners of legitimation).

In every chapter of this book, it is evident from the analysis that, hand in hand with law and law enforcement, borders create foreigners and differentiate them from residents. During times of empire, exploitation of people elsewhere for the betterment of colonisers in powerful countries was a given, in terms of the power inequities between colonisers and colonised peoples. It was normal to monitor family lives (including codifying personal laws of different religious and ethnic groups in colonial lands), confining people to particular work or industries (for example, forcing farmers to grow cash crops or not allowing lawyers to practise in courts without certain qualifications from England), or normalising emergency use of police and military powers in domestic law and order situations in order to retain colonies. People were moved across empire or deployed and incentivised to work in priority areas for the empire (for example, slavery, indentured labour and armed forces). It took time and strategic use of resources as well as changes in global political circumstances to disentangle the unequal relationships of empire.

With the advent of human rights and the rise of nation-state equality across the globe, there was a period when many human beings could exercise free movement and acquired the ability to access resources and contribute to global economies worldwide. This period coincided with the advent of mass travel. With more people travelling from poorer parts of the world, soon borders became widely prevalent and harder to cross. Modern times thus replicate and repeat many structural inequalities, particularly those seen in formerly colonised spaces. However, the monitoring of populations, mostly racialised ones, now happens on national soil at the core of former empires rather than overseas in colonial outposts. Migration as an individual choice is streamlined towards national interests of wealthier nations and discouraged or violently stopped when considered to be against popular will or national interests. Richer countries (which had previously become wealthy through colonising the source countries of modern migration) could now pick and choose the ‘desirable’ migrants while blocking out others who might be risks to their economies or their security or were just ‘too different’ in their eyes. While borders and bordering practices were present in the past, they have now become ever less exceptional in nature. Now they not only demarcate nations and territories, but also transform long-term resident people, including citizens, into foreigners or migrants without a right of presence by invading homes, workplaces and neighbourhoods.

Throughout, the focus of the book is on the law and how it operates to categorise and demarcate eligibility and access to resources. The implication is that courts, legislators and the public should not just derive unquestioning authority from the law but be open to understanding the political, historical and economic imperatives behind the law, at the same time being more cognisant of race, class and gender in this area of law. The law has always had a central and multidimensional role to play in bordering. The central idea of creating different categories of human beings who have different rights is based on sorting out who is actually worthy of being a full member of the society located in that particular time and place from who is deemed unworthy of full membership. This is the central project of migration control.

Law has at least three broad dimensions in which it operates for this purpose. First, it lays down the expectations of state power in terms of rules and legislation so these can be implemented, sometimes to the detriment of the individuals affected. Second, it legitimises domination over those who do not benefit from the rules, often from a neutral or even an overtly beneficent perspective (such as exporting the rule of law for greater justice) while actually having disadvantageous effects on those lacking formal and/or substantive membership. Finally, it can be mobilised, in often unexpected ways, by those seeking to challenge bordering practices. This third dimension of the role of law has become more prominent with the rise of human rights instruments but is now threatened by rising nationalism and rollbacks in commitments to universal human rights.

We can follow these patterns in the exclusionary frames of immigration control: national security, law and order, productivity needs and welfare access. Health and demographic preferences linked to race and gender have been present ever since it has been possible to exclude others, but these frames become more discretionary and delinked from rights or procedural safeguards (including those of review) with time. The workplace and the family have become spaces where the intersections between the national, continental and remnants of empire are racialised and gendered to sort people into categories.

The growth in unreviewed and enlarged discretionary executive powers of exclusion seems particularly out of step with the human rights frameworks to which most nations have signed up. There are few checks if executive discretion is exercised in discriminatory or arbitrary manners. If these powers are exercised against specific kinds of citizens (for example, racialised citizens or long-term residents) there is a real danger that the idea of equal citizenship and fairness within nation states could be subverted. Unlike empires, nation states usually have charters (whether constitutional, legislative or simply by tradition) of inclusion and equality for their citizens over and above, or in addition to, human rights. If these arrangements are undermined there would be widespread deportations of marginalised citizens as well as the likelihood of the creation of a permanent underclass of less-valued citizens or residents who are only viewed instrumentally as being useful for the common good. Such citizens would not be able to partake of the full benefits of citizenship or residence. Emergency powers, and their widespread as well as long-term use, make these enduring inequalities heightened and pernicious.

The spread of populist, anti-migrant and anti-migration rhetoric has become pervasive, with populist political parties which oppose immigration and asylum increasing their vote share across most of Europe and North America. Riots that target racialised minorities in the UK and bring to the brink of power anti-immigration parties such as in France and in the Netherlands demonstrate how immigration has become a lightning rod for hate rhetoric. Resurgence of nationalism is also exemplified by Brexit and the connected immigration law changes. In 2025, Trump (at the time of writing this conclusion) has deported migrants who are ‘undocumented’ and revoked the legal status of many migrants who held secure status.

The categorical exclusion of foreigners present in our midst is often an indicator of rising national fervour and a return to ethnicised and racialised notions of national belonging. With ‘hostile environment’ legislation in the UK, it has now become the duty of individuals who control access to resources such as housing (landlords), healthcare (medical services staff) and employment (employers) to monitor the immigration status of others. Indeed, finding who is the ‘other’ has become a duty for all of us. What are the implications of such developments? Are we to live in a continued dystopia of borders everywhere as law and technology serve the rise in ethnonationalism globally? Are we at the end of an era of human rights where the tools to check discrimination no longer exist, except in national promises which fluctuate with politics?

Perhaps there are pragmatic advantages for one party in the continuation of relationships of exploitation, but such exploitation should never be justifiable in the name of law. For example, perhaps the modern state is looking for a quick-fix pragmatic remedy to counter terrorism, but this should be checked against the standards of the rule of law. The grave implications for the rule of law intensify when different legal categories in immigration, nationality and asylum are collapsed into one. This ought to be considered as legally distinct, but politics often conflates these and renders every legal status entirely precarious. Executive discretion should be narrowly tailored for nationality and asylum matters to conform with international law, whereas it can be wider in scope for immigration so long as principles of fairness and non-discrimination are adhered to in each instance. Only then can there be conformity with the basic principles of the rule of law.

With increasing migration and a rise in naturalisation as well as dual/multiple nationalities, there should be the delinking of national citizenship from any kind of ethnic preferences in the host population, but as immigration control is normally linked to national origins, national membership continues to remain closely associated with ethnicity. State sovereignty makes it difficult to challenge on what basis newcomers are treated differently, and the barriers which are placed on them. At the same time, there are expectations of contribution and assessment of deservingness placed on individuals.

A modern nation state does not need token spaces of multiculturalism, but real recognition of plurality, which is a part of shared history, and diverse groups of people should be stakeholders in its future. Integration is usually about common language and understanding of the majority culture, but it should be much deeper in terms of mutual respect and support.

Integration (just like the decision to migrate) is normally depicted as an individual choice, but local communities can play a huge role in proactively welcoming those who migrate and providing them with supportive conditions to integrate. Cities and city authorities, for instance, can certainly act to oppose national politics that are anti-migrant, since cities host most migrant populations and draw on migrant work forces. Some cities have embraced their titles of global cities or joined the movement to become ‘cities of sanctuary’ for asylum seekers. Can these models be replicated on national scales (or even continental ones) to create truly global nations or nations of sanctuary? Or will the rhetoric of becoming Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ keep echoing Powell’s ill-chosen ‘rivers of blood’ invectives (Walker 2025; Burke 2025).

Only time will tell, but for now the hope captured in the words of renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore provides a suitable substitute. Tagore won a Nobel prize for literature in 1913 while India was still a British colony, for his poems written in Bengali. He became a leading inspiration in India’s independence struggle and turned down a British knighthood in protest against imperial violence. In this poem, ‘Gitanjali 35’ from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), he beseeches the supernatural powers for a new future for his country, but it is equally a plea for all of humanity. Let nation states rise above being realms of prejudice.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.¹