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<p>While return occupies a central position in European migration policy discourse, it remains a loudly announced, weakly implemented, and strongly contested aspect of migration governance. The enduring “return gap,” the divergence between policy commitments and actual removals, underscores the limitations of a control-oriented framework. Drawing on a comparative study of 11 EU+ countries, the article develops an ideal-typical categorization of state responses to non-return, here termed “alternatives to return” to denote the full spectrum of formal and informal responses implemented when return does not occur, a governance reality that inevitably follows non-return. Organized across three axes, inclusive/exclusionary, explicit/implicit, and active/passive, these six governance forms reveal the coexistence of coercive and accommodating logics, challenging the assumption that return constitutes the normative endpoint of irregular migration control in Europe.</p>

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Alternatives to Return: An Ideal-Typical Categorization of State Responses to Non-Repatriated Irregular Migrants

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月24日

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  • Maurizio Ambrosini,
  • Gül Ince-Beqo

摘要

While return occupies a central position in European migration policy discourse, it remains a loudly announced, weakly implemented, and strongly contested aspect of migration governance. The enduring “return gap,” the divergence between policy commitments and actual removals, underscores the limitations of a control-oriented framework. Drawing on a comparative study of 11 EU+ countries, the article develops an ideal-typical categorization of state responses to non-return, here termed “alternatives to return” to denote the full spectrum of formal and informal responses implemented when return does not occur, a governance reality that inevitably follows non-return. Organized across three axes, inclusive/exclusionary, explicit/implicit, and active/passive, these six governance forms reveal the coexistence of coercive and accommodating logics, challenging the assumption that return constitutes the normative endpoint of irregular migration control in Europe.