No Safe Haven 161 to anonymous people smugglers.40 The second part of the journey from Lesbos to the Greek capital is “managed” and to some sort “authorized” by the Greek Ministry of Interior and costs only thirty-five euros, the price of a regular thirdclass ticket on the ferry to Piraeus. In many cases, this regular ticket is paid by the regional administration of Lesbos to support the boat migrants’ immediate departure from the island. Despite the fact that all clandestine boat migrants are eventually to leave the island, they are still a long way off from reaching the white zone of regular resident rights, a right granted to half a million economic migrants in Greece. At the end of the moratorium created by an expulsion order, the undocumented irregular migrant often slips back into illegality, without any authorization to stay in the national territory he or she entered clandestinely. This status passage from a “black” existence in detention to a “grey zone” of manoeuvering and finally back to illegality is clearly socially constructed, and has most serious practical consequences. Without a valid residence permit and a work permit in the new country of residence, there is only one way to survive: going underground and working in the country’s shadow economy, getting involved in all sorts of “black” and unregistered economic activities. Needless to say, this practice of undocumented “underground” employment opens the door to all kinds of economic and other exploitation due to the completely unprotected social status of a foreign worker (male or female) without documents and permits. Closing remarks In the last chapter a comparison will be made between two types of irregular migrants arriving in Greece in the last decade and their different reception in the host country under investigation. This comparison shall shed light on the different management of the arrival of economic migrants from neighbouring Balkan countries in contrast to clandestine migrants arriving via Asia Minor (and coming from various countries in the Middle and Far East or Africa). As previously mentioned, the Greek government has proceeded to grant legal status to a large part of its initially irregularly working immigrant population originating from neighbouring Balkan countries and the former Soviet Union with the regularization programmes of 1997, 2001 and 2005. With these repeated attempts to legalize part of the foreign workforce in Greece, economic migrants were given the opportunity to apply for regular work permits, gaining next to legal status 40 The price mentioned for clandestine entry to Lesbos is based on information given by boat migrants on the occasion of press or police interviews. See also Lauth Bacas (2006), Kehayiogloy (2007) and the local newspaper Aiolika Nea from 3/2/2010.