Statistics show that deportation rates in the European Union remain strikingly low and are decreasing. However, successfully resisting deportation does not guarantee a residence permit, often leaving migrants in legal limbo-unable to return home yet unable to gain legal residence. The existence of non-removable migrants challenges long-established migration categories and highlights the ambiguities of a framework that fails to meet its deportation aims while clinging to migration control impulses.

When Deportation Fails examines this legal category on the margins of the law, exploring its normative and empirical foundations. It analyzes the processes and legal frameworks that create non-removability in the EU, explaining why, despite the normalization, legalization, and legitimization of deportation, EU Member States struggle to deport as much as they aim to. Furthermore, the book reveals the legal implications of non-removability and proposes solutions. It argues that EU law stratifies the rights of non-removable migrants into distinct sub-categories and explores regularization as a desirable policy to end protracted irregularity and non-removability.

Covering diverse issues in migration studies, asylum and citizenship law, and migration policy theory, this comprehensive study will appeal to academic scholars and those working on migration issues in EU organizations and the non-governmental sector.