Venues and Filters in Managed Migration Policy: The Case of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, like many developed world economies, has witnessed unprecedented immigration since the early 1990s. Also in line with other developed world economies, the UK has adopted a “managed migration” policy paradigm. The paper argues that the operation of this paradigm is best understood with reference to two key concepts: migration policy “venues” and migration policy “filters.” In terms of the former, the paper argues that managed migration policy is associated with outward, upward, and downward rescaling and commensurate venue growth and diversification. In terms of the latter, the paper argues that six policy filters (legal, geographical, credential, transfer-based, monetary, and humanitarian) are commonly used to determine legitimate forms of migration but that one (the geographical filter) has been particularly prominent within the UK's managed migration policy paradigm