Casualties of CareImmigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France

Abstract This book explores the unintended consequences of compassion in the world of immigration politics. It focuses on France and its humanitarian immigration practices to argue that a politics based on care and protection can lead the state to view issues of immigration and asylum through a medical lens. Examining two "regimes of care"—humanitarianism and the movement to stop violence against women—it asks what it means to permit the sick and sexually violated to cross borders while the impoverished cannot? The book demonstrates how in an inhospitable immigration climate, unusual pathologies can become the means to residency papers, turning conditions such as HIV, cancer, and select experiences of sexual…