User:Meganyeh/Immigration

Lead
In this article, I will add an additional subsection to the laws and ethics section. This contribution will be focused on the legislation and ethics for rights of immigrants internationally. It concerns what international obligations nations are held to, and the ethics regarding the protection of rights of immigrants from an international lens.

Legend:

Bold type - my edits

Plain type - existing Wikipedia text

Laws and ethics[edit]
'''Legislation regarding the protection of rights of immigrants and equal access to justice differs per nation. International law -- the product of the United Nations and other multinational organizations -- creates protocols governing immigrant rights. International law and the European Convention of Human Rights state that immigrants can only be detained for ‘legitimate aims’ of the state. It also notes that vulnerable people should be protected from unreasonable punishment and lengthy detention. International law outlines requirements for due process and suitable conditions. However, nations are sovereign, and the protocols of international law cannot be enforced upon them. Nations have the freedom to handle immigrants as they choose, and to structure how any legal aid is distributed. Human rights organizations strongly criticize individual nation-states for the limitations of their immigration policies and practices. '''

Treatment of migrants in host countries, both by governments, employers, and original population, is a topic of continual debate and criticism, and the violation of migrant human rights is an ongoing crisis. The United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, has been ratified by 48 states, most of which are heavy exporters of cheap labor. Major migrant-receiving countries and regions—including Western Europe, North America, Pacific Asia, Australia, and the Gulf States—have not ratified the convention, even though they are host to the majority of international migrant workers. Although freedom of movement is often recognized as a civil right in many documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the freedom only applies to movement within national borders and the ability to return to one's home state.

Some proponents of immigration argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right, and that the restrictive immigration policies, typical of nation-states, violate this human right of freedom of movement. Such arguments are common among ideologies like anarchism and libertarianism. As philosopher and open borders activist Jacob Appel has written, "Treating human beings differently, simply because they were born on the opposite side of a national boundary, is hard to justify under any mainstream philosophical, religious or ethical theory."[citation needed]

Where immigration is permitted, it is typically selective. As of 2003, family reunification accounted for approximately two-thirds of legal immigration to the US every year. Ethnic selection, such as the White Australia policy, has generally disappeared, but priority is usually given to the educated, skilled, and wealthy. Less privileged individuals, including the mass of poor people in low-income countries, cannot avail themselves of the legal and protected immigration opportunities offered by wealthy states. This inequality has also been criticized as conflicting with the principle of equal opportunities. The fact that the door is closed for the unskilled, while at the same time many developed countries have a huge demand for unskilled labor, is a major factor in illegal immigration. The contradictory nature of this policy—which specifically disadvantages the unskilled immigrants while exploiting their labor—has also been criticized on ethical grounds.[citation needed]

Immigration policies which selectively grant freedom of movement to targeted individuals are intended to produce a net economic gain for the host country. They can also mean net loss for a poor donor country through the loss of the educated minority—a "brain drain". This can exacerbate the global inequality in standards of living that provided the motivation for the individual to migrate in the first place. One example of competition for skilled labour is active recruitment of health workers from developing countries by developed countries. There may however also be a "brain gain" to emigration, as migration opportunities lead to greater investments in education in developing countries. Overall, research suggests that migration is beneficial both to the receiving and sending countries.

Europe[edit]
Research suggests that police practices, such as racial profiling, over-policing in areas populated by minorities and in-group bias may result in disproportionately high numbers of racial minorities among crime suspects in Sweden, Italy, and England and Wales. Research also suggests that there may be possible discrimination by the judicial system, which contributes to a higher number of convictions for racial minorities in Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark and France. A 2018 study found that the Dutch are less likely to reciprocate in games played with immigrants than the native Dutch.

Several meta-analyses find extensive evidence of ethnic and racial discrimination in hiring in the North-American and European labor markets. A 2016 meta-analysis of 738 correspondence tests in 43 separate studies conducted in OECD countries between 1990 and 2015 finds that there is extensive racial discrimination in hiring decisions in Europe and North-America. Equivalent minority candidates need to send around 50% more applications to be invited for an interview than majority candidates.

A 2014 meta-analysis found extensive evidence of racial and ethnic discrimination in the housing market of several European countries.

United Kingdom
'''Since 2010, the United Kingdom’s policies surrounding immigrant detention have come under fire for insufficiently protecting vulnerable groups. In the early 2000s, the United Kingdom adopted the Detention Duty Advice (DDA) scheme in order to provide free, government-funded, legal aid to immigrants. The DDA scheme at face value granted liberty on administrative grounds by considering immigrant merits, nature of their work, their financial means, and other factors that would then determine how much free legal aid detainees were granted. Recent research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), demonstrates that marginalized groups have been barred from legal assistance in detention centers. The barriers immigrants face in order to access justice through the DDA disproportionately impacted underrepresented groups of immigrants, and the language barrier and lack of interpreters led to further hurdles that detainees were unable to jump through. '''

Canada
'''In Canada immigrant detainees face barriers to justice due to a lack of international enforcement. Canada’s immigration detention system has significant legal and normative problems, and the rubric of ‘access to justice’ that is presented by international law fails to identify these faults. There is a lack of access to legal aid for immigrants in detention, as well as inhumane treatment in detention centers. Research has demonstrated irreparable psychological, physical, and social damage to immigrants, and the international community ignores these injustices. Immigrant detainees in Canada face unjust discrimination, especially immigrants and asylum seekers that belong to underrepresented groups. '''