From banlieue youth to undocumented migrant: Illegalized foreign-nationals in penal institutions and public space

Abstract

This article addresses the similarities between the experiences of life as a banlieue youth, as a prisoner and as an undocumented migrant, from the perspectives of foreign-national youths who grew up in French suburbs but were ordered to be deported as a consequence of a criminal sentence. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with such ‘illegalized’ and deportable inmates at different stages of their trajectories and their way through the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems in the Paris region.