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.
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