Abstract
Responding to growing immigration concerns, European countries have increasingly resorted to restrictive entry policies in recent years. While migration literature tends to support this policy lever, reporting a significant association between restrictive legislation and immigration flows, findings are generally based on measures of regular migration only. This paper complements available evidence using innovative data on irregular flows between 2003 and 2016 on the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR) to provide a critical analysis of the use of restrictive regulations as a migration management tool. It finds that such restrictions, rather than deterring irregular migration, are likely to push more people into the asylum system. Reducing access to legal pathways has no significant effect on the volume of irregular migrants apprehended on the CMR, while it increases the number of those that seek regularization through asylum application.