Free movement? The onward migration of EU citizens born in Somalia, Iran and Nigeria

Research into the mobility of EU citizens has contributed to a better understanding of the social effects of European integration. A growing body of literature highlights that naturalised third-country nationals are also making use of their ‘freedom of movement’. This paper proposes a typology of ‘new EU citizens’ who onward migrate between member states. It draws on relevant statistics and qualitative empirical research carried out with Dutch-Somalis, Swedish-Iranians and German-Nigerians who relocated to the UK. In contrast to research with native-born EU movers, our findings indicate that the majority of naturalised EU citizens onward migrated due to the discrimination and racism they experienced in their previous place of residence. In this paper we conceptualise the interactions of integration and transnationalism as a potential trigger for onward migration. We illustrate how onward migrants are able to complete certain aspects of their integration process in a second member state. Moreover, we show how migrants maintain transnational ties across several destinations and therefore contribute to a broader understanding of transnationalism.