Publication Date

Fall 2025

Abstract

This study examines irregular migration and the lived experiences of migrants and asylum seekers in Tunisia, focusing on how individuals navigate prolonged transit in the absence of legal status, protection, and formal rights. Based on qualitative interviews with eight migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, and Sudanese refugees displaced by mass violence, the research approaches migration not as a single act of movement but as an extended condition shaped by housing, employment, mobility, and access to safety. Across interviews, Tunisia is described as a transit country that unexpectedly became a site of residence due to expired visas, exit fines, and restricted onward movement. Findings indicate that migrants rely on informal labor, shared housing, and community networks to survive, as legal frameworks prohibit undocumented migrants from signing contracts, accessing regulated employment, or securing formal housing. These conditions produce enforced immobility in which migrants are economically necessary yet legally marginalized. Racialized discrimination, gender-based violence, and fear of police surveillance further shape daily life, particularly for women and minors, while limiting access to healthcare, education, and public space. The analysis situates these experiences within broader scholarship on racialized mobility and migration governance, drawing on migration studies alongside documentary sources from NGOs and institutional actors. Rather than framing irregularity as individual failure or legal deviance, the study demonstrates how it is produced through intersecting social, legal, and economic structures. By centering migrants’ narratives, the research highlights prolonged transit as a lived condition and shows how migrants transform exclusion into strategies of endurance amid sustained precarity.

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

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