Borders and the mobility of migrants in Luxembourg

This country report sought to explore the border as a site of control and the ways in which it interferes with migrants’ (asylum seekers, refugees and rejected asylum seekers) trajectories before, upon and after arrival in Luxembourg. To this end, it explored, through qualitative interviews with a total of 29 state and civil society actors and migrants, as well as ethnographic observation at Findel airport, Luxembourg’s only external border, the multiple conceptualisations and experiences of borders. It has identified that the suppression of internal controls within the Schengen area has been accompanied by a surge of controls within the member states, either at the stage of lodging an asylum claim, or at the street level, where migrants can be stopped and searched by police officers. Furthermore, the data showed that the migrants interviewed not only did they experience bordering practices during their interactions with public actors, but they were also subject to bordering during their interactions with private actors from the housing and employment market. The principal finding of this research with regards to the interplay between borders and the mobility of migrants is that cross-border mobility is commonplace, the migrants’ mobility practices reflecting the movements of the local population. As such, borders do not represent efficient mechanisms of control which can prevent migrants’ mobility trajectories.