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The National Network for Immigrant and
Refugee Rights has prepared the following statement
for International Migrants Day. Over 130 organizations
and over 80 individuals have endorsed it. View
endorsers by clicking here.
HUMAN SECURITY
& MIGRANT RIGHTS NOW:
INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS DAY 2006
Today,
on December 18th, 2006, in observance of the United
Nations’ International Migrants Day, we stand
together to call upon the U.S. government and the United
Nations itself, to uphold the human rights of all immigrants
and refugees. We express our concern for the plight
of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees
who are seeking “human security”: peace,
safety, community, employment, shelter, civil liberties,
access to culture, education and health care, while
being criminalized, discriminated against, and subjected
to new forms of racial, ethnic, national origin and
religious profiling being practiced as part of everyday
immigration law enforcement and services.
December
18 honors the day in 1990, when the UN General Assembly
passed the International Convention on the Protection
of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of
their Families. It is a day in which we recognize the
enormous contribution that migrants make to all countries
of our world.
Migration
continues to be a growing, global phenomenon. Over 185
million people worldwide, or one out of every thirty-five
persons, are migrants -- living, working, raising families
and building communities in places outside their country
of origin. However, migration policies and practices
often fail to protect the human rights of migrants,
and in many cases, contribute to greater and systematic
abuse.
We
call for a national immigration policy in the U.S. built
upon the principles of human security with dignity,
justice, and equality, and that uphold the civil and
human rights of all people, regardless of their race,
color, class, religion, ethnicity, national origin,
gender, sexual orientation, disability, immigration
or citizenship status.
We
call on all countries, including the United States,
to ratify the UN International Convention on the Protection
of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of
Their Families, which establishes a comprehensive framework
to uphold the rights of migrants. We congratulate the
35 nations that have ratified this Convention, and urge
them to fully comply with the aims and mandate of this
important agreement.
We
applaud the unprecedented outpouring of immigrant communities
around the U.S. this year, which called for the recognition
of immigrant rights and an end to attacks on immigrant
communities. In steadfast denouncement of House Bill
HR4437 and other accompanying bills in Congress, millions
of immigrant families and supporters took to the streets
from Chicago to Houston, from Los Angeles to Boston,
and from Seattle to Miami throughout the year, demonstrating
widespread resolve towards the call for real comprehensive
immigration reform.
In
the United States, the U.S.-Mexico border region, in
particular, continues to experience intensified militarization
with impunity, and has become a de-constitutionalized
zone where communities and immigrants are racially profiled
and subjected to unfair detentions and deportations.
We condemn the Bush Administration’s and the U.S.
Congress’ approval of 700 more miles of additional
walls, electronic surveillance and the deployment of
6,000 National Guard troops to police the border. These
border control policies and immigration law enforcement
initiatives, being implemented with impunity, have only
served to force migrants into more remote, desolate
and dangerous border zones to cross, resulting every
year in hundreds of deaths and countless others who
have disappeared in the desert, creating a permanent
and sorrowful loss to their families and communities.
We
reject restrictive immigration proposals in Congress
that would criminalize immigrants through intensified
border enforcement, and extend inhumane enforcement
mechanisms to the interior. We further reject the current
“compromise” proposals that contain guest-worker
provisions that would expand and sustain an underclass
of migrant workers, inevitably exposing migrant workers
to employer abuse. Furthermore, we denounce such provisions
that ensure corporations a pool of cheap, disposable
labor for use and discard according to economic demands.
We
welcome the increased attention of the United Nations
towards migration on the occasion of its High Level
Dialogue on Migration and Development this past September,
and congratulate Member States and the Secretary General
on recognizing the importance of protecting the rights
of all migrants. However, we deplore the significant
lack of inclusion of migrant community voices in the
dialogue itself, and we continue to express grave concern
that the proposed Forum on Migration and Development
might only include the participation of civil society
when Member States deemed it “desirable and appropriate”.
As the United Nations itself acknowledges, just and
effective policies can only be achieved with full democratic
participation, which with regard to migration policies,
must certainly include migrant communities.
We
believe that the U.S. must fulfill its commitment to
uphold the human rights of all members of our country
and the globe. As part of the international human rights
community, we decry the death, forced displacement and
creation of new migrant and refugee populations as a
result of U.S. foreign policy and military belligerence
in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
On
this International Migrants Day 2006, and as we move
towards a new year, let us renew our commitment to human
security for all -- a commitment to the right to live
free of fear, racism, and xenophobia, -- and a commitment
to safety and the defense of human rights for all communities.
xxx
List
of endorsers here...
Read NNIRR's 2004
International Migrants Day statement
Read NNIRR's 2003 International
Migrants Day statement
Read NNIRR's 2002 International
Migrants Day statement
Read NNIRR's 2001
International Migrants Day statement
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Migrant
Rights are Human Rights!