Changes to the French Immigration Law Written by Victor Villarreal Cabello
Major immigration countries have been deploying policies of containment and selection from the logic of
securitisation in the twenty-first century. The French immigration policy has recently enacted a new law on immigration on December 19th, 2023, which represents a turning point in France’s ideological and
legislative approach to the migrant crisis. The Ministry of the Interior and Overseas of France published the Presentation of the Law to Control Immigration. According to the text, some key points of this measure
guarantee the right to asylum to “fight against irregular migration” and improve integration (Ministère de l’intérieur et des outre-mer, 2024a); many have interpreted both as anti-immigrant actions.
The law presents four immediate measures and seven trends for migration policy, as follows: 1) facilitating the removal of foreigners whose behaviour represents a serious threat to public order; 2) putting an end to the detention of families with minors; 3) organising the regularization of foreigners working in
professions in shortage without the employer’s agreement; and 4) fighting against the trafficking and exploitation of foreigners (Ministère de l’intérieur et des outre-mer, 2024b, p. 4).
Conversely, the seven orientations or trends are: 1. Control borders at the national and European levels. 2. Expel foreigners who represent a threat to public order. 3. Sanction the exploitation of foreigners. 4.
Improve integration through language, work, and commitment to respect the principles of the Republic. 5.
Guarantee the right to asylum by initiating a structural reform of our organization. 6. Simplify the litigation rules related to the entry, stay, and removal of foreigners. 7. Adapt our migration policy to the specificities of Overseas Territories.
The first immediate measure builds the idea of migrants as criminals. The previous idea is that many
migrants are illegal and prone to crime. The fourth immediate measure tries to fight human trafficking;
nevertheless, this means that “governments can present more restrictive immigration controls as if they
were measures designed to protect and promote human rights” (O’Connell Davidson, 2005, p. 69). Human trafficking is a discourse that legitimises control and restive actions with the discourse of protecting victims or “possible” victims (Ruíz Muriel y Álvarez Velasco, 2019, p. 692).
The human trafficking market exists, and some people suffer its effects. In contrast, a non-regular border
crossing cannot always be treated as an unwanted or wanted crossing by migrants. First, human trafficking “involves exploiting men, women, or children for forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation” (DHS, 2017). Second, human smuggling “involves providing a service—typically, transportation or fraudulent