‘We don’t cooperate with the police’: an ethnographic study of statutory social workers’ firewall practices to resist direct involvement in migration control in Finland

This article contributes to the literature on social work and bordering by exploring how statutory social workers in Finland deal with erratic police requests to share client data on undocumented migrants, collected in welfare purposes, to put immigration enforcement into practice. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data produced during a fieldwork period in public social services, the article shows that social workers utilise ‘firewall practices’ to resist partaking in such forms of direct migration control and to build trust with undocumented clients. In addition to being rooted in the confidentiality legislation, firewall practices are grounded in discussions between social workers and in a collective shaping of practices at the workplace. Framing these practices through the lens of agonistic social work, the article suggests that the resistance to partake in direct migration control is relational and political. Social workers identify immigration enforcement as an adversary within the state, thus rejecting the idea of a ‘neutral’ consensus-seeking social work and embracing its agonistic nature.