Intermediaries and opacity: understanding refugee family reunification through migration infrastructures

Abstract This study investigates the bureaucratic and infrastructural challenges Afghanistani refugees face in Belgium during the family reunification process. Drawing on the migration infrastructure framework and theories of street-level bureaucracy, the research examines how institutional opacity, discretionary decision-making, and the involvement of intermediaries shape refugees’ navigation of complex administrative systems. While visa outsourcing is intended to enhance efficiency, it often compounds barriers for vulnerable groups by producing fragmented and profit-driven service environments. The study adopts an insider researcher methodology and presents two detailed case studies: one involving a former Afghanistani security officer and the other an unaccompanied minor seeking to reunite with family members in Turkey. Both cases expose systemic inefficiencies, inconsistent application of refugee-specific exemptions, and the emotional and financial burdens placed on applicants. Intermediaries emerge as both essential facilitators and ambivalent gatekeepers, stepping into gaps left by rigid procedures and institutional disengagement. Street-level actors, including consular officials, outsourced service providers, and NGO workers, exercise considerable discretion that often undermines humanitarian protections enshrined in law. The findings highlight how refugees’ mobility is shaped not only by legal frameworks but by the interplay of infrastructural fragmentation, procedural opacity, and informal assemblages. This study contributes to critical migration scholarship by documenting how family reunification is governed through overlapping and uneven systems of control, and by calling for greater transparency, regulatory oversight of intermediaries, and improved training for frontline actors to ensure the effective protection of refugee rights.