|
Illegal immigration refers to the immigration of people across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. To be an illegal immigrant, one must be rejected or fail to apply for legal immigration status. In politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues with possible consequences in areas such as economy, social welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, crime, legal protections, public services, and human rights. Terminology used in Europe Terminology used in Asia Terminology in the United States Terms used in the United States include: "Illegal alien" is the official term used in legislation and by the border patrol for a person who has entered the country illegally or is residing in the United States illegally after entering legally (for example, using a tourist visa and remaining after the visa expires). "Undocumented worker" is often used by supporters to refer to all undocumented individuals, including children and those who do not work, arguing that it is offensive to describe any human as illegal, whether or not their behavior is illegal. George Lakoff, a University of California linguist and progressive strategist, has argued that "the terms 'aliens' and 'illegals' provoke fear, loathing and dread" and should thus be avoided• The National Association of Hispanic Journalists recommends "undocumented immigrant"•. Victor Davis Hanson, neo-conservative historian and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming" has argued that "undocumented worker" is a euphemism or politically correct term for "illegal alien." He states: "'undocumented worker,' for example, is the politically correct synonym for ‘illegal alien.’ •. David Ray, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) a proponent of immigration reduction, has also criticized the use of the phrase “undocumented immigrant”. He states: “referring to an illegal alien as an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is "like calling a bank robbery an 'unauthorized withdrawal.'" • Causes Illegal immigration is largely driven by people moving from one location of perceived or real poverty or danger to an area offering a higher standard of living or higher wages. Nations experiencing extremes of weather, high levels of unemployment, civil war, or violent political conflict will often experience short term spikes in emigration (citizens leaving the country). Poor conditions may result when nations lag in stability, security, technological skills, or organizational ability, or when nations lack resources, knowledge, or political will or cohesion to build a better-educated work force or a better economy. One of the largest drivers of immigration, both legal and illegal, is economic supply and demand for labour and the desire of people to participate in the economy and in so doing better their economic situation. Labour is a mobile economic factor of production; efforts to limit its mobility are attempts at limiting the free market (for labour) and an attempt to inhibit human nature. Some people immigrate to fill jobs offered by agribusiness, construction, entertainment or other typically low skilled jobs. Some immigrate to fill a relative shortage of persons with either a particular skill or training. Some corporations seek cheaper labor. Another driver of illegal immigration is emigration as an attempt to escape civil war, repression, military servitude (such as conscription or national service), or sexism in their native country. One of the driving forces of illegal immigration is the excessive population growth often found in feeder countries without the corresponding growth in the economy to support that population. This imbalance often causes depressed wages or high unemployment levels, low levels of education, poor health, rampant corruption, inadequate living space, or means of subsistence for themselves and their kids. As the world population keeps growing geometrically in areas that are economically challenged, the excess population is becoming the dominant factor that mounts the "migratory pressure" - a term that is sometimes used to measure the determination of prospective immigrants to enter another country in possible violation of that country's border controls and/or immigration laws. Many immigrants desire to secure free welfare, free education and free healthcare typically offered by many developed countries for their own citizens. People may immigrate illegally if they find barriers to legal immigration to be too high. To legally migrate, people have in the past also had to qualify on racial or religious grounds; eg. Australia had a "white only" immigration policy. Methods For a US perspective on this subject please refer to: Illegal immigration to the United States Some illegal immigrants enter a country legally and then overstay or violate their visa, while others follow underground routes, such as illegally crossing a border without being inspected by an immigration officer at a Port of Entry (POE), with or without a valid passport and visa. Most of the estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants in Canada are refugee claimants whose refugee applications were rejected but who have not yet been ejected from the country.• The other way of becoming an illegal immigrant is through bureaucratic means. For example, a person can be allowed to remain in a country - or be protected from expulsion - because he/she needs special treatment for a medical condition, etc., without being able to regularize his/her situation and obtain a work and/or residency permit, let alone naturalization. Hence, categories of people being neither illegal immigrants nor legal citizens are created, living in a judicial "no man's land". Another example is formed by children of foreigners born in countries observing jus soli ("right of territory"), such as France. In that country, one may obtain French nationality if he was born in France - but, due to recent legislative changes, it is only granted at the age of eighteen, and only upon request. Some who, for one reason or another, haven't asked for it, suddenly become illegal aliens on their eighteenth birthday, making them eligible for expulsion by police forces. Immigrants from nations that do not have an automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally. In some areas like the U.S.-Mexico border, the Strait of Gibraltar, Fuerteventura and the Strait of Otranto. Because these methods must be extralegal, they are often dangerous. Would-be immigrants suffocate in shipping containers, boxcars, and trucks, sink in unseaworthy vessels, die of dehydration or exposure during long walks without water. Sometimes migrants are abandoned by their human traffickers if there are difficulties, often dying in the process. Others may be victims of intentional killing. The official estimate, for example across the US-Mexican border, is that between 1998 and 2004 there were 1,954 people who died in illegal crossings. These smugglers often charge a hefty fee, and have been known to abuse or even kill * their customers in attempts to have the debt repaid. The Snakeheads gang of Fujian, China, has been smuggling laborers into Pacific Rim nations for over a century, making Chinatowns frequent centers of illegal immigration.* Smuggling of people may also be involuntary on the immigrant's part. Following the close of the legal international slave trade by the European nations and the United States in the early 19th century, the illegal importation of slaves into America has continued, albeit at much reduced levels. The so-called "white slave trade" referred to the smuggling of women, almost always under duress or fraud, for the purposes of forced prostitution. Now more generically called "sexual slavery" it continues to be a problem, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, though there have been increasing cases in the U.S.** People may also be kidnapped or tricked into slavery to work as laborers, for example in factories. Those trafficked in this manner often face additional barriers to escaping slavery, since their status as illegal immigrants makes it difficult for them to gain access to help or services. For example Burmese women trafficked into Thailand and forced to work in factories or as prostitutes may not speak the language and may be vulnerable to abuse by police due to their illegal immigrant status.• Classification Immigrants are often divided into political migrants - i.e. refugees - and economic migrants. Those who migrate for personal reasons are generally classed as economic migrants, even if living in the new country greatly reduces their earning potential. Immigrants that may be legal and illegal from both divisions. Some political migrants are offered political asylum as a legal form of migration. Wealthy and talented migrants are often allowed to legally migrate. Advocates of more restricted immigration divide people into political migrants and economic migrants, while supporters of more open immigration may consider all kind of migrants as refugees. Legal and political status See also: Illegal immigration to the United States, Immigration to the United States, Australian immigration, Immigration to the United Kingdom, Illegal immigrants in Malaysia. Many countries have had or currently have laws restricting immigration for economic or nationalistic political reasons. Whether a person is permitted to stay in a country legally may be decided by quotas or point systems or may be based on considerations such as family ties (marriage, elderly mother, etc.). Exceptions relative to political refugees or to sick people are also common. Immigrants who do not participate in these legal proceedings or who are denied permission under them and still enter or stay in the country are considered illegal immigrants. Most countries have laws requiring workers to have proper documentation, often intended to prevent or minimize the employment of unauthorized immigrants. However the penalties against employers are often small and the acceptable identification requirements vague and ill-defined as well as being seldom checked or enforced, making it easy for employers to hire unauthorized labor. Unauthorized immigrants are especially popular with many employers because they can pay less than the legal minimum wage or have unsafe working conditions, secure in the knowledge that few unauthorized workers will report the abuse to the authorities. Often the minimum wages in one country can be several times the prevailing wage in the unauthorized immigrant's country, making even these jobs attractive to the unauthorized worker. However, most unauthorized workers are paid well above minimum wage. In response to the outcry following popular knowledge of the Holocaust, the newly-established United Nations held an international conference on refugees, where it was decided that refugees (legally defined to be people who are persecuted in their original country and then enter another country seeking safety) should be exempted from immigration laws. It is, however, up to the countries involved to decide if a particular immigrant is a refugee or not, and hence whether they are subject to the immigration controls. The right to freedom of movement of an individual within National borders is often contained within the constitution or in a country's human rights legislation but these rights are restricted to citizens and exclude all others. Some argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right and that nationalism and immigration policies of state governments violate this human right that those same governments recognise within their own borders. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental human rights are violated when citizens are forbidden to leave their country. (Article 13). This, however, only assists immigrants with the first part of their immigration process and does not assist with the second, finding a new home. Since immigrants without proper legal status have no valid identification documents such as identity cards, they may have reduced or no access to public health systems, proper housing, education and banks. This lack of access may result in the creation or expansion of an illegal underground economy to provide these services. Occasionally, authorities issue amnesties (often called regularization, earned legalization or guest worker programs). The presence of illegal immigrants often generates opposition. A perception may exist among some parts of the public in receiving countries linking illegal (or even legal) immigrants to increases in crime, an accusation that others may claim is "anti-immigrant" or "xenophobic". When the authorities are overwhelmed in their efforts to stop illegal immigration, they have historically provided amnesty. Amnesties, which are becoming less tolerated by the citizenry, waive the "subject to deportation" clause associated with illegal aliens. Controversy Critics of the "illegal immigrant" status, such as Saskia Sassen in The Global City (1991, revised 2001), have contended that the artificial creation of legal aliens was necessary to ensure the reduction of production costs and low-wages policies demanded by the "new economics". Others, such as Giorgio Agamben, have pointed out the similarity between an illegal alien, an "enemy combatant" and a Homo Sacer, a figure of Roman law deprived of any civil rights. Advocates of illegal immigration characterize nearly all migrants as legitimate, implying that the real costs and benefits imposed on the rest of the population are temporary and less important than the human rights issues. Advocates of stronger restrictions on illegal immigration believe it is a given right of citizens to defend and maintain their traditional culture and standard of living without allowing unrestricted illegal immigration. They argue that illegal immigrants often do not behave on nationalistic interest, saying that their determination to migrate was not driven (or was driven to a lesser extent) by their willingness to abandon their native countries and make the receiving country, with its laws, customs, culture, and socio-political structures, their new homeland. Rather, they argue that many move in search of a higher level of subsistence for themselves and their families, often without feeling any obligation to assimilate or desire to renounce allegiances to their countries of origin and their governments. Those in favor of further restricting illegal immigration say that some show great patriotism for countries to which they would loath to return. Many members of the public react negatively to the presence of unauthorized immigrants, who allegedly take desired jobs, crowd their streets, markets, schools, prisons and emergency rooms. Such sentiments are often exploited politically. However, allegations that the presence of unauthorized immigrants means increased costs and increased rates of crime and unemployment with few compensating benefits are conversely attacked by unauthorized immigrant advocates as "anti-immigrant" or "xenophobic." Studies of Mexican immigrants to the United States have suggested that unauthorized immigration may in fact be associated with decreased crime.• European Union Restricting immigration in the European Union has often been driven by the fear the immigrants will bring alien political values that will disrupt or dilute European values, by nativism or general fear of strangers, by fear of wage and benefit reduction, by concerns of adverse impact on public services, or by security interests regarding criminals or terrorists. A major issue is illegal immigration from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea, especially via the Strait of Gibraltar, where thousands of people die every year in attempts to reach Europe. There have been suggestions about establishing immigrant centres in Morocco, or elsewhere in northern Africa, to give information and protect the people risking their lives to reach Europe. Southern Spain is a major region of entry for illegal immigrants. It is estimated that about a million illegal immigrants from Africa live and work illegally in this area. The European Union is developing a common system for immigration and asylum and a single external border control strategy. In France, helping an illegal immigrant (providing shelter, for example) is prohibited by a law passed on December 27, 1994 under the cohabitation between socialist President François Mitterrand and right-wing Premier ministre Edouard Balladur *. The law was heavily criticized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the CIMADE or the GISTI, left-wing political parties such as the Greens or the French Communist Party, and trade-unions such as the magistrates' Syndicat de la magistrature, who alleged that this brought France to the dark periods of Vichy France during World War II. In October 2005, dozens of Subsaharian emigrants died trying to bypass the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. Morocco's authorities decided to expel all of them, leaving hundreds stranded in the desert near Oujda (border with a zone of Algeria loaded with landmines) and south of Morocco, without water or food. This raised a public uproar in Europe, although Morocco legitimately pledged that Europe's 1985 Schengen Agreement compelled it to provide Morocco with funding to cope with the emigration influx. Once in July 2004 and a second time in May 2006, Hellenic Coast Guard ships were caught on film cruising as near as a few hundred meters off the Turkish coast and abandoning clandestine immigrants to the sea. This practice resulted in the drowning of six people between Chios and Karaburun on 26 September 2006 while three others disappeared and 31 could be saved by Turkish gendarmes and fishermen Delete the Border quoting Khaleej Times; ADN Kronos Survivors of the immigrant boat tragedy accuse Greeks (in English language | ||||||
| English]) - http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx?id | 5115588&tarih=2006-09-20 http://proje.hurriyet.com.tr/msnnews/?path=/gundem/5152587.asp&y=41 http://proje.hurriyet.com.tr/msnnews/?path=/gundem/5155756.asp&y=41. The newspaper Hürriyet (in Turkish language |