Irregular migrants in European countries are faced with an extremely precarious position, in which they enjoy practically no rights that citizens take for granted. Despite this, they live their lives, start families, find employment, have health and educational needs, participate in society and form their own circle of friends and acquaintances. In short, they exercise their private and family life, which is specifically protected by international human rights law. A potential deportation of an individual who has established a private and/or family life in the host country constitutes an interference with the right to private and family life, but this right is not absolute. When studying migration, we must borne in mind that it is precisely state management, the legislative and enforcement activity of state bodies, which gives irregular migration its specific characteristic of illegality and creates the category of the irregular migrant as a category of exclusion. However, there is a mismatch between the migration policies of states and their capacity to implement them, whether for bureaucratic, financial, social or political reasons. To mitigate the consequences of this mismatch, European countries are implementing measures to regularise the residence of illegally staying foreigners. Although the ECtHR's case-law in this area is highly casuistic and strict, it is indisputable that the ECHR includes a right to regularisation of illegal residence. Article 8 ECHR provides for a fair procedure in which the competent authority must properly weigh the interests of the individual and the State and apply a proportionality test. The amended Aliens Act does not contain the possibility to suspend deportation proceedings and regularise status on the grounds of respect for the right to private and/or family life.
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