162 Jutta Lauth Bacas also increased social security in comparison to those working “without papers”. The case of half a million economic migrants from Southeast European countries who have been converted from irregular aliens to legal residents of Greece shows clearly that the illegality of a foreigner in a nation state is a social and legal construction, a classification granted or denied by state authorities. It is interesting to see that among the large number of foreign immigrants living in Greece in 2009, 19 300 from Pakistan, 13 500 from India, and 11 000 from the Philippines have legal residence titles.41 These nationals from India, Pakistan and the Philippines were able to provide a valid passport upon application for a residence permit, and the long queue of individuals waiting each morning in front of the Pakistan embassy in Athens hint to the fact that dozens of Pakistan nationals attempt every day to settle their documents. In contrast to those “documented” immigrants from outside Europe, the situation for people crossing the Greek-Turkish borders without documents after fleeing war, armed conflict, or persecution is different. For undocumented foreigners of Afghan, Somali, Iraq or Iranian origin, the absence of valid documents prevent their possible integration in the host society and they have to stay underground in Greece for months and years. These “paperless” migrants, who often fled home countries without functioning administration, are trapped in illegality in a very special way, because they can neither return to a transit country (without passport) nor can they apply for a legal residence title in Greece (without a passport).42 Although violence and armed conflicts in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or Somalia often make voluntary return unfeasible, no regularization procedures are possible or under discussion at present in Greece. In fact, the Greek government has little room to manoeuvre and design or implement a regularization programme for “paperless” irregular migrants arriving from countries which are involved in war and no longer provide their citizens with regular identification documents, since migration and asylum policy has become not only a national issue, but a European political matter, too. In the framework of the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, EU member states jointly decided in 2008 to tackle illegal immigration, stating as a basic principle of the common EU immigration policy that “irregular aliens on member states territory must leave the territory” without exception.43 In line with this 41 42 43 Figures by September 2009, see Tzioukas 2009: 49. The British filmmaker Winterbottom shows in his documentary film the experiences of two Afghan boys who grew up in a refugee camp in Islamabad/Pakistan and managed to flee to London. Due to the circumstances of their family’s survival as refugees the acquisition of a passport was impossible. Council of the European Union: European Pact on Immigration and Asylum. Doc. No. 13440/08 ASIM 72. Brussels, 24 September 2008.