This book surveys the many different ways in which irregular migrants settle and make a living in Belgium and the Netherlands. Offering an empirically grounded theoretical critique of the dominant research s focus on survival strategies, overreliance on comparisons of migrant communities, and overemphasis on structural explanations, Masja van Meeteren instead takes the aspirations of irregular migrants as her starting point, which opens up fascinating new questions about their lives and roles in their new home nations."