Description
This article examines the colonising practices of merit-based migration in the context of Singapore. Merit-based immigration regimes create tiers of migration, exacerbating inequality and negatively affecting the rights of migrants. Through a framework of crimmigration, this article argues that vulnerable migrant populations are subject to particular forms of control and regulation based on a constructed notion of ‘merit’ or ‘skill’. Scholarship on crimmigration demonstrates how processes of migration are intrinsically raced, gendered and classed. Neoliberal patterns of migration, combined with a highly stratified merit-based system, dehumanises the migration process for vulnerable migrant populations by creating categories of people on the basis of ‘utility’, while propagating inaccurate stereotypes of ethnic minorities. Market rationalities lend to a crimmigration complex that structures the over-regulation and inadvertent criminalisation of such migrants. Adding to scholarship on crimmigration, this article argues ‘merit-based’ immigration regimes exacerbate racialised effects of crimmigration where those categorised as ‘low-skilled’ are subject to more intense and arbitrary forms of penalties, while placed in vulnerable positions due to their visa statuses. Focusing on the ‘lower-skilled’ segment of the workforce, this paper draws on Singaporean policies towards South Asian temporary migrant construction workers as its case study.
