Bottom-up Approaches to the Regularisation of Undocumented Migrants: The Swiss Case

If migration represents, generally speaking, a ‘challenge to the Nation State’, all the more so can be said about irregular (economic) migration:¹ those who enter and take residence within the State in breach of its migration provisions openly defy its control over its borders and its population, with the risk of increasing social discontent and eventually creating political instability.² It is common knowledge that, in trying to reassert their sovereignty over their national territories, States have enacted ever more restrictive immigration policies over the years, but not all the measures that States have taken to address irregular migration are ‘exclusionary’