It is said that a true measure of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. To what extent, however, does this litmus test extend to the irregular migrants among us – namely, those who live and/or work in host communities without the legal right to reside? What does it take to be a “member” of society to whom protection is owed?

These are key questions facing all major migrant-receiving countries. Moreover, the choices our national governments make in relation to regulating the rights of irregular migrants matter for all of us. These choices affect our schools, our workplaces, our healthcare and eldercare settings, and our streets. Everyone is implicated, for this is what it means to live in society.

The first step in problem-solving around the issues related to irregular migration is to better understand the conditions of irregular migrants and the current responses of national governments. To this end, we at the European University Institute, Uppsala University and the University of Zagreb developed IRMIGRIGHT – Europe’s first database of the social and labour rights of irregular migrants. Unrestricted public access to the database will be available in the second half of 2026.

Using the data we compiled, we constructed a novel set of indicators that allow us to measure and compare the nature of irregular migrants’ rights in 16 different social and labour fields across the 27 EU member states and the UK. Our recently published results of this analysis reveal important differences in the types of rights that irregular migrants can claim by law in European countries, and they show significant variation in the quality of those rights cross-nationally.

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Our research shows that European governments typically legislate to provide irregular migrants with a small set of basic rights. On the social side, these rights include access to emergency healthcare, maternity care and compulsory education for children. In labour terms, irregular migrants most commonly enjoy the right to recover a portion of unpaid wages (the UK and Bulgaria are the only countries in which they do not) and to be assured basic health and safety standards in the workplace. The range of services or benefits included in these rights is, in most cases, equal to those of citizens.

By contrast, it is only in a small minority of European countries that irregular migrants can exercise rights to emergency subsistence-level income support and temporary shelter – even in cases of extreme need. Routine income support payments and access to long-term social housing are virtually non-existent for irregular migrants under national laws.

The more established EU member states (the “EU 15”) typically offer better protections than the newer, post-enlargement member states. However, Denmark, Greece, Ireland and the UK break with this trend by providing weaker rights protections for irregular migrants.

Obstacles to meaningful rights

Amid the patchwork of protection and exclusion of irregular migrants in the rights frameworks of European countries, perhaps the bigger story is the widespread presence of obstacles to meaningful rights enjoyment. What our research shows is that it is one thing for an irregular migrant to have a right by law in a host country, but quite another to have a right that is provided in terms that enable the migrant to freely exercise that right.

Our findings show that even among the “best-performing” European countries such as Spain, France, Finland, Belgium and Sweden, irregular migrants face multiple “cost” barriers to enjoying their rights. Some of these costs are financial. Irregular migrants might have access to a variety of healthcare and education rights, but where the user costs of services associated with these rights exceed costs charged to citizens, irregular migrants might be priced out of services altogether.

User costs for irregular migrants vary cross-nationally: for instance, the UK charges 150% of National Health Service costs for certain maternity and specialised treatments, whereas the Netherlands treats irregular migrants on the same basis as citizens in regard to all healthcare for which these migrants are eligible. Costs may be waived, but the very presence of high costs can be enough to stop individuals from seeking even emergency or medically necessary care.

Prohibitive financial costs can also deter irregular migrants from exercising rights that they ought to be able to enjoy by law. There is no right without a remedy, yet our research finds that only around 50% of legal “rights” for irregular migrants are accompanied by some form of legal aid for them to exercise those rights.

Arguably, the cost that weighs most heavily on irregular migrants in exercising their legal rights is that of becoming visible to law enforcement authorities and facing potential immigration detention and deportation.

This rights obstacle can be reduced by “firewalls” – laws or policies that prevent service providers and state officials from reporting to immigration enforcement authorities those irregular migrants who, for example, use hospitals, schools and social services, or seek labour justice. It is striking, however, that only a handful of European countries offer such firewalls in regard to social rights (mostly healthcare), and that no country provides a firewall for irregular migrants to pursue their labour rights following workplace exploitation, abuse or injury.

Defining our societies

All in all, the picture of irregular migrants’ rights across Europe suggests that we have some way to go in guaranteeing fundamental and realisable rights that apply to all persons regardless of immigration status. The comparative country data we have compiled provide a new opportunity for European societies to hold up a mirror to themselves and ask if they are satisfied with the reflection. Do the rights that irregular migrants enjoy under the law speak to the values, norms and aspirations of host societies, or is it time for a health check?

Irregular migrants will inevitably remain of our societies, however well national governments succeed in limiting immigration and however we choose to set the boundaries of societal membership. By promoting and protecting irregular migrants’ core rights to necessary healthcare, emergency subsistence-level income and shelter, freedom from labour exploitation, and compulsory education for children, countries can realise their shared European ideals while simultaneously building healthier communities for all.

Our development of IRMIGRIGHT is part of the international “PRIME” project that analyses the conditions of irregular migrants in Europe. PRIME is funded by the European Union Horizon Europe programme.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Clare Fox-Ruhs, European University Institute

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Clare Fox-Ruhs ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.