When the universal right to education meets the liminal legality of migrant children

The right to education of migrant children and especially those in different situations of liminal legality, embedded in universal human and children rights and, notions of personhood and childhood. However, such children are also subject to immigration policies, policies which often render them stateless or in liminal legality, and which today are a main site of national sovereignty. The right to education of such children, their possible future trajectories and state responses to their responsibility to meet this right, are shaped by the tensions between the logic of personhood and the logic of state sovereignty. This paper aims to unpack those tensions and address some of the consequences for the right to education of migrant children. We discuss the tension between state activities around managing migration and the universal right to education. We then use different national cases to illustrate several specific consequences of liminal legality to the right to education. We ask what are the challenges once crossing into the school, for the migrant child’s rights in education and what future trajectories such children might have. We focus on the following: access to educational provision; the right to be learner citizens; and the right to have a future.