Legal and illegal recruiting agencies in Pakistan mirror each other structurally

Evidence

The privatized labor-recruiting system is also part of the biopolitical project to link traveling bodies to state-regulated systems of control via documentation in the form of passports, identity cards, visas, as well as employment records and labor contracts. But because it is located outside the direct control of the state, and because of the ambivalence associated with labor migration in Pakistan, private industry often blurs categories of legality and illegality while simultaneously connecting them to state documentation. Thus, for example, one can go to a legal contracting agency to obtain work abroad and unknowingly enter into illegal activities. Conversely, one can also go to an illegal agency (one with an expired license or no license and thus not supervised by the state) and obtain a legal work contract. Thus, legal and illegal migrant recruiting both mirror the structures of the state, making it di≈cult to identify illicit agents and brokers who deceive migrants into entering complex human smuggling rackets. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 693 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Legal and illegal migration channels structurally mirror each other in Pakistan — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 693; Illegal and legal markets differ in degree, not kind — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 608

Broader Connections

• Legal and illegal migration channels structurally mirror each other in Pakistan #corroborates (1.00) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 693