Social services crisis management practices towards poor foreign nationals

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the vulnerability of various already marginalized groups, such as foreign nationals, who were already facing high job insecurity, leading them to experience an urgent need for financial assistance, food aid, and other basic support. Consequently, this population, who are likely to work in precarious jobs and be in an insecure legal status, potentially became dependent on social benefits. Given the restrictive Swiss Federal Foreign Nationals and Integration Act that allows for the loss or downgrading of residence permits if foreign nationals depend on social assistance, social workers in charge of distributing social assistance face dilemmas between care and control. While social workers are instrumental in the creation of client images that exist along a continuum of ‘most deserving’ to ‘welfare fraudsters’, they also contribute to the current expectations of both state agents and clients towards services provided and actively shape the implementation of policies. Because social workers face a broad variety of individuals and high political pressure to select those deemed most needy, this article explores the daily challenges social workers encounter regarding professional ethics and client interactions. Based on ethnographically collected data derived from two research projects conducted between 2019 and 2023, we explore practices and discourses of several social services in Switzerland and trace the practices of social workers during a crisis. We take an interest in how social workers position themselves within the intersection of social policy and migration law and explore how they contribute to changes in a restrictive migration framework. This research increases the available knowledge on social work practice and its impacts during and in the aftermath of a crisis and therefore creates an understanding of how social work functions in a highly politicized field during socio-political emergencies.