Abstract
The “irregular” legal status of immigrants when entering and continuing in a certain country is a decision of each State, which may choose to criminalize and forbid these actions or to integrate and “regularize” them, allowing access to (some) of the nationals’ rights. In the last few years, several states of the United State shave chosen a public policy of “crimmigration”, converging criminal law and immigration law, aiming at punishing and deporting immigrants “defined” as irregular. In Europe, “crimmigration” policies, legislations, and practices, transplanted from the United States, have also been recently implemented. However, countries like Portugal moderately accept this tendency, still preferring the inclusion and legislation of “permanent regularization” of immigrants.
Keywords
irregularity; immigrants; crimmigration; criminalization; inclusion