With this project, I'm curious to explore whether policy recommendations can be grounded in collective intelligence. To investigate this, the project examines how deportable immigrants in high-income liberal democracies have managed to secure permanent residency without formal changes to immigration law. Deportation is approached as a perturbation—one that is overcome through the actions of citizens and migrants who collaboratively shape new criteria for identifying citizens among migrants.
Recording the life histories of deportable migrants who managed to gain access to citizenship using no guiding questions beyond "Where were you born?"
Scanning the narratives and identifying common beliefs, attitudes, and actions that earn the support of the citizenry in their struggle for legal recognition. The goal is to identify the rules that guide citizens when deciphering who among the mobile population is considered 'citizen material.'
Research will take place in high-income liberal democracies that operate deportation regimes. Traces of consensus-based coordination will be identified through legal precedents, discursive decisions by relevant officials, newspaper articles, and social media campaigns.
This project combines qualitative life-history interviews, computed consensus to validate the research analysis, and the translation of findings into policy recommendations.
Migrant rights organizations, Master's-level university programs in migration or legal studies, democracy labs, migration researchers, and legal teams.















































































I feel deeply that I belong to the earth, I belong to nature and I believe in solid ground. I think we are human and don’t have any shelter but humanity... I think that I belong to this world and I belong to the human race beyond political borders. I am a free man.
Behrouz Boochani


I am one of the lucky ones, I know that there are unlucky women who disappeared after trying to escape or who could not do anything to change their reality.
Rahaf Mohammed


I like cinema because it has allowed me to be seen. But for me, my dream, when I get my papers the first thing I will do is go to the garage that has spent three years trying to hire me as a mechanic. That’s who I want to work for.
Abou Sangaré


The Bethelkerk is for me now a special building, but I am glad that I can get out of it and can continue to build on my future.
Hayarpi Tamrazyan