dr. L (Laura) Cleton

Biography

Dr. Laura Cleton is Assistant Professor at the department of Public Administration and Sociology. She specializes in the policies and politics of deportation in Europe, in particular for undocumented children and their families. She works on migration governance, migration policies & politics, deportation regimes, feminist approaches to migration studies and family migration. She acts as Associate Editor for the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Steering Committee member to IMISCOE's Gender and Sexuality in Migration SC, and secretary of the Dutch Association for Migration Research (DAMR).

At Erasmus University, Laura works on three main projects:

• She is PI on the NWO-funded Veni project "Rights in Return: How Frontline Workers Negotiate the Legitimacy of Undocumented Migrant Children’s Return across Borders" (January 2026 - April 2029). This project investigates how frontline workers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Nigeria negotiate, justify and contest the deportation and "reintegration" of illegalized migrant children through human rights discourse.
• She acts as researcher and coordinator in the Horizon Europe project FAiR (Finding Agreement in Return, November 2023 - November 2026). She investigates the perceived legitimacy of deportation policy among street-level bureaucrats who are involved in implementing return and readmission policy. She also works on the role and monitoring of human rights in forced deportation and "assisted voluntary return" programs.
• She is PI on the LDE-GMD funded project "Whose Best Interests" (together with Elina Jonitz, Elias Tissandier-Nasom and Nour Hjeij) on the wellbeing of undocumented children at family reception centres in the Netherlands (September 2024 - ). This project won the EUR & Erasmus MC Open & Responsibe Science award for Societal Engagement in December 2025.

Laura previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher (UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University) on the temporary return of highly skilled diaspora for purposes of capacity building. She defended her PhD ‘Deporting Children. Policy Framing, Legitimation and Intersectional Boundary Work’ in October 2022 (University of Antwerp). The project relied on feminist intersectionality theory to unravel the ways the Dutch and Belgian authorities legitimize the deportation of undocumented migrant children by centering the intertwinement of discursive "boundary work" with "bordering practices". Her dissertation won the 2022 American Political Science Association Migration & Citizenship Section Best Dissertation prize and the 46th Van Poelje Best Dissertation Prize awarded by the Dutch Association for Public Administration. She also worked as a junior lecturer (University of Amsterdam) and a junior researcher (Utrecht University).