A `Reserve Army of Delinquents'

Abstract

This article explores the role of `irregular' immigrants in the political economy of Spain, their related criminalization and the forms of punishment that attach to their illegal status. Based on secondary data, government documents and field research, I argue that Spanish immigration laws primarily focus on defining levels of social and economic inclusion/exclusion, and that they have the consequence of marginalizing immigrants and consigning them to the extensive underground economy, as a kind of economic sanction for their illegal status. Finally, it is this punishment and the economic marginalization it helps constitute that shore up the `flexibility' that immigrants provide the post-Fordist economy and for which they are reluctantly tolerated.