Abstract. This chapter focuses on the social signi­fi­cance of the income thre­shold, a key requi­re­ment intro­duced into Belgian migra­tion legis­la­tion in 2011. This crite­rion contri­butes towards “migran­ti­sing” Belgian citi­zens who wish to live in Belgium with their foreign, third-country national partner. By stra­ti­fying and compro­mi­sing the rights of citi­zens to esta­blish their family life prima­rily through a social class-based selec­tive crite­rion, Belgian family migra­tion legis­la­tion now raises ques­tions of social justice among the citi­zenry. Its effects also unravel the “income-class-race” nexus by crea­ting cate­go­ries of “internal unde­si­rables” that have previously gone unad­dressed. By inter­t­wi­ning the poli­tical and legal frame­works with the couples’ subjec­ti­vi­ties and their expe­riences of immi­gra­tion bureau­cracy, along­side legal inter­me­dia­tion stra­te­gies and liti­ga­tion, this chapter offers a compre­hen­sive unders­tan­ding of how Belgian family reuni­fi­ca­tion reforms – and in parti­cular the 2011 law – erode the social and symbolic capital tradi­tio­nally asso­ciated with citi­zen­ship, produ­cing not only class but even race and gender inequa­li­ties. Moreover, the chapter reveals the citi­zen­ship-class grie­vances of Belgian part­ners dealing with the treat­ment of their “situated” mixed­ness and prompts us to consider inter­sec­tional dimen­sions of “social class” in prac­tice, within the context of the Belgian migra­tion regime.

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