Samenvatting

This essay highlights the tensions between legal and cultural citizenship in the implementation of return policy for illegalized migrant children in the Netherlands and Belgium. Despite being integral parts of these societies in many respects, their legal status renders them deportable. I argue that return policy for this group suffers from a legitimacy deficit because it conflicts with moral norms and values associated with cultural citizenship ideals. My research indeed shows that officials and others involved in the implementation of return policy continuously legitimize their actions and the underlying policy to justify the deportation of illegalized children and morally substantiate it. They do so by discursively placing them outside the community of members. My work therefore exposes the arbitrary and contestable ‘legitimation work’ put up to normalize and effectuate deportations. I challenge the legal approach to citizenship and call for a reevaluation of what it means to be part of a national community.