Getting into the flow – what do we know now, 15 years since CLANDESTINO?

This reality underscores the importance of collecting good-quality data on the size of the irregular migrant population, not only stocks (i.e., the total number of irregular migrants residing in a particular location at a specific point in time, offering a snapshot of the migrant population but also flows (i.e., the movement of irregular migrants over a defined period, capturing arrivals, departures, and net migration, providing a dynamic perspective on migration patterns and trends). The first large-scale EU-funded project to do so was CLANDESTINO (Undocumented Migration: Counting the Uncountable: Data and Trends Across 
Europe), which ran from 2007 to 2009. Now over a decade since CLANDESTINO, and with managing irregular migration flows a mainstay 
policy priority in the EU and other countries, this book chapter outlines the main findings from the MIrreM Project’s Work Package on Flows (WP4). More specifically, it provides a summary of the current approaches to measuring irregular migration flows, and addresses the question: what do we know now about irregular migration flows, 15 years since CLANDESTINO? 

Publication details: Siruno, L., & Leerkes, A. (2025). Getting into the flow – what do we know now, 15 years since CLANDESTINO? In D. Kierans & A. Kraler (Eds.), Handbook on Irregular Migration Data. Concepts, Methods and Practices (pp. 93-104). University of Krems Press. https://doi.org/10.48341/g31s-vq79.