| Summary: | The aim of the article is to show the challenges in scholarly attempts to conceptualize the phenomenon of irregular immigration. Although this type of migration has been of interest to scholars for several decades, it still requires in-depth analysis to better explain and understand its causes, scope, and consequences. The article attempts to clarify the nature of irregular immigration, indicating both the general ways of defi ning this phenomenon and the process of shaping it in socio-political reality since the end of the 19th century. The analysis reveals the internal diversity, dynamism, and ambiguity of this type of migration, which developed in
parallel with the control instruments implemented by the states, aimed at enforcing increasingly complex immigration regulations conditioning the entry, stay and work of immigrants. The presented theoretical refl ection on the complexity and the heterogeneity of irregular immigration is then confronted with the interpretation of this phenomenon in the EU immigration policy. Another important complement to these studies is to show the terminological challenges that have emerged in previous studies on irregular immigration. They are important both for the objectifi cation of theoretical investigations and for an empirical analysis of this social phenomenon.
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