The Politics of Family Norms and Development in Constructing Deportable Minors

• In Event: Immigrant Detention and Deportation

Abstract

This article uses feminist intersectional theory to analyze how multiple axes of difference come together in the laws, policies and practices that produce the deportable status of unaccompanied minors in Belgium and the Netherlands. Unaccompanied minors without residence status pose particular challenges to nation states, as the latter need to balance the conflict between their migration management goals with their normative imaginary as promotors of children’s rights and wellbeing. Previous literature therefore suggests that states consider unaccompanied minors deserving of protection due to their minority, while at the same time seeking to exclude them as non-citizens. Children’s migration status thereby often trumps their needs as children, which has detrimental consequences for their wellbeing and future. This article further pushes this claim through an intersectional analysis of the multiple markers of difference that are invoked in discourses and norms that form the basis of policy efforts to exclude minors from the nation state. By relying on interviews, policy documents and parliamentary debates, the article argues that state justifications for excluding unaccompanied minors rely on hegemonic family norms and Western ideas tied to child development, that are implicated by gendered, aged, racialized and classed systems of power. The article therefore exemplifies how values and normative frameworks intertwine with formal immigration regulations – not solely when admitting immigrants but also in excluding them.

Author

• Laura Cleton, University of Antwerp