This document presents a thesis presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It explores ethnographically how clandestine migration has been constituted as a field of intervention and knowledge-gathering since this time. In this field, it is argued, the roles of policing, caring for and informing on migrants intermingle while producing shared models, materialities and classifications that impinge upon the travellers labelled “illegal”. Drawing on the dynamic nominalism of Ian Hacking, the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and a growing body of critical migration and border studies, the thesis explores the interfaces where specific modalities of migrant illegality are produced. The exploration of these interfaces – in deportation, surveillance, patrolling, rescues, reception and activism – relies on an extended field site, with research carried out in Senegal, Mali, Morocco, southern Spain and European policing headquarters. Throughout, the thesis highlights not just the workings of the migration industry but this industry’s excesses and absurdities, which make the business of bordering Europe a fraught and contradictory enterprise.

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Illegal Immigration// Immigration// Indicator// Refugees// Immigrants// Migration// immigration law // Immigration policy//Human Rights// Women and migration//