Urban Policies in Support of Irregular Migrants in Geneva and Zürich

Abstract

Cities worldwide develop a variety of urban policies in support of irregular migrants. By doing so, cities intervene in a policy-making realm that is commonly perceived as the pre-rogative of national states. We compare policy-making in support of irregular migrants in the two biggest Swiss cities (Geneva and Zürich). Whereas Genevan authorities and local societal actors established a regularization program, actors in Zürich are struggling to create an urban ID card program. The institutional setting of the two cities (as a city-state or a city in a state), the presence or absence of multilevel governance networks as well as the differ-ent venue shopping strategies of societal actors can explain these different urban policy-making processes. In its essence, this article is a documentation and explanation of how cities contest national state sovereignty over irregular migration and it thereby calls for an urbanization of migration theory and practice.