Migrant illegality in the Gulf is produced through law’s subversion, not law itself

Evidence

Employers’ deceptive and exploitative practices are regimented by the state, which also intentionally neglects labor protection. Thus, it is not so much the law that structures migrant illegality as it is the use of exploitative practices through consistent and transparent subversion of the law. Human-rights organizations have documented how contract labor systems in the Gulf make transnational labor migrants susceptible to harsh, often illegal work conditions through the use of such excessive measures as imprisonment, corporal punishment, docking of pay, and illegal withholding of wages and o≈cial documents such as passports and work visas. Racially segregated, substandard workers’ housing is common in the Gulf, with labor camps often in remote and hard-to-reach locations outside cities. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 713

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s law-merchant work: both examine how institutional structure, not law per se, governs exploitation and trade in regulated regimes. — connects to: Undocumented presence in the United States is a civil, not criminal, offense — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 640
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 713