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Abstract

The Schengen area tends to be commonly misconstrued in the public perception as being ‘border-free’, defined by the unrestrained mobility of people, goods and capital. In reality the so-called ‘internal borders’ are still marked by a fervour of activities, conducted by the various national state agencies created for the purpose of territorial protection. Identity and migration checks – which often strikingly resemble pre-Schengen border checks – special crime-prevention tasks and transnational operations of police-type forces, detention and the unrelenting transfers of asylum-seekers and forced returns of illegalised mi-grants (also of EU nationals) are only a few among the many responsibilities of the various border-guard formations. This paper, based on data from fieldwork with the street-level Polish Border Guards working in the Intra-Schengen border region on the Polish–German border, analyses the impact of different levels of institutional discretion: official, local and individual, with a particular focus on the officers’ behaviour and decision-making and on the role of discretion within the policy implementation of a specific proce-dure. Analysing the phenomenon of the forced returns (deportations) of EU nationals within the Schengen area, this paper exposes the nature of the little-known practice of cross-border transfers. It focuses on the phenomenon of a forced return of Polish citizens from Germany, specifically on the micro-level moment of transfer of custody between the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) into the hands of the Polish Border Guards (Straż Graniczna) on the Polish–German border, looking at the procedural variations and the decision-making of the officers, especially in the context of its street-level echelon and its practical contribution to the concept of deportability.
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Authors and Affiliations

Maryla Klajn
1
ORCID: ORCID

  1. Leiden University, the Netherlands

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