Photo credit: RTL
The Luxembourg government says it is impossible to provide reliable figures on the number of people living in the country without legal residency. It cited the inherent difficulty of tracking undocumented migration.
RTE Today reports that counting the number of people living in Luxembourg without valid residency status is, by its very nature, an impossible task, according to a recent government reply to a parliamentary question from Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LAP) MP Mars Di Bartolomeo.
The government explains that it is fundamentally not possible to identify how many people are currently living in the country irregularly, since “by definition, individuals not identified by the authorities do not appear in administrative records”, and irregular residency specifically to individuals who are not registered by state administrations.
Officials stress that there is currently “no reliable or responsible method” for estimating the number of undocumented residents in the country.
Visual impressions or informal estimates, the government notes, are not only unreliable but risk unfairly targeting people based on appearance or background, which is a particularly problematic approach in a country as diverse as Luxembourg.
As the government points out, the very nature of irregular residency makes a comprehensive census impossible.
Even at the Directorate of Immigration, only people undertaking official procedures appear in the system. Those avoiding contact with the authorities, by definition, remain invisible to official records.
While it is impossible to determine the total number of people living in Luxembourg irregularly, certain indicators can be gleaned from workplace inspections.
The Labour and Mines Inspectorate (Inspection du travail et des mines, ITM) conducts regular inspections of employers and occasionally uncovers individuals either without residency status or working without proper authorization.
