ABSTRACT
This study examines the migration trajectories of Filipino migrant workers in Belgium, asking how migrants rely on intermediaries across different informal migration pathways. Drawing on Fresnoza-Flot’s humanizing approach to migration studies and based on 20 in-depth interviews, it traces how migrants navigate legal precarity through intermediaries. Empirically, intermediaries become salient at two critical junctures: (1) facilitating entry into Belgium through invitations, referrals and circulation of information and (2) assisting migrants, to varying degrees, to navigate Belgian legal, social and labour systems after arrival. By centering migrant narratives, the study presents three informal migration pathways: jump ship migration as a shift from regular to irregular status; short-term visa overstay as legal entry that extends beyond authorized stay; and cross-border labour mobility as movement through multiple countries before settling in Belgium. Migrant narratives matter analytically because they show how intermediaries shape the terms under which legal precarity is navigated, how legality is interpreted and recalibrated over time and how informal pathways are produced relationally rather than as isolated individual acts.