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Svenja Blanke,
Questions of migration and human rights are interrelated. Speaking as a Berliner in November 1999 I am tempted to mention the current anniversaries regarding the fall of the wall that remember that 10 years ago it was a migration movement from East into West Germany triggering the fall of the wall and the call for a political system and society where freedom of thought and movement are inalienable rights. While we understand this event as a very positive example of the linkage between human rights and migration, we know that the majority of refugees and migrants do not necessarily receive such an enthusiastic welcome. Civil wars, poverty, ecological disasters, overpopulation and human rights violations are the reasons for most of today's migration movements. The fate of refugees and migrants in connection with the rising unwillingness on part of the industrialized nations in the North (but also among developing countries) calls for the help of other international actors than the nation state. The growth of private voluntary agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in this field has been especially notable. Since the 1970s the human rights as well as refugee rights lobby have been emerging with increasing activism. Human rights organizations, churches, religious groups, and civil rights organizations are trying to cure the symptoms, localize and publicize the failures of governmental policies as well as offer alternative policy options. Growing citizens' participation in international affairs carries implications for the culture of migration and foreign policy. I would like to illustrate the interrelationship of human rights and migration by introducing a concrete example from contemporary U.S. history. The example demonstrates the significant role NGOs and civic groups have come to play in this particular policy field and the consequences thereof. In May 1981, Mr. Dudley, a U.S. citizen was on his way back from Mexico when he picked up a Salvadoran citizen in the desert of Arizona. Soon, the car was stopped by the U.S. border patrol. The Salvadoran - being without papers which made him an illegal alien - was taken into custody. When one of Dudley's friends from Arizona, Jim Corbett, tried to find out the whereabouts of the Salvadoran migrant, he encountered major difficulties with the bureaucratic agencies. Visiting the Salvadoran in prison he saw other Central Americans in custody and found out that the police had not explained them their rights, including the possibility to apply for asylum. Some of them were sent to unknown places; for the majority the application for asylum was turned down. Corbett contacted legal aid organizations and churches in order to find legal and financial assistance for these migrants. Corbett was not familiar with the situation in El Salvador but he knew that the country was in the midst of a civil war. In the following months and years, the attempt to help detained or undocumented migrants by people from the grassroots, from churches and church organizations grew into a nation-wide social movement, the so-called sanctuary movement: the most well-known attempt of religiously-inspired citizens in the US to get involved in refugee rights issues during the last two decades. The encounter with migrants from El Salvador or Guatemala made the situation in Central America and U.S. foreign and migration policy more concrete for those that had not previously been involved in these issues. The moral dimension of detention and deportation policies was the reason for the increased participation of people who are usually not involved in foreign policy issues. The Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugee rights campaign characterizes a new dimension of NGO and grassroots activism. The discourse about human rights broadened. The groups did not only focus on the human rights violations in the refugee-sending region but attempted to demonstrate the linkage of U.S. policy that contributed to the situation according to the activists. In addition, they argued against the inhumane treatment of the civil war refugees. Due to the war and human rights violations in El Salvador approximately 300.000 to 500.000 Salvadorans came to the U.S. (8-10% of population) in the 1980s. We can conclude that during Ronald Reagan's first term as President religious organizations and churches and the U.S. administration were struggling about the "right" approach towards the increasing migration from Central America to the United States. The administration enumerated the dangers for the American society that would evolve out of the growing migration and announced the securing of the national borders against undocumented migration from the South. Sanctuary activists viewed the migrants from the South as victims of a refugee policy that violated the human rights of these migrants. One activist maintains that [w]e have to be aware that the violation of Central Americans' human rights in the United States is integrally tied to the violations of Central Americans' basic rights in Central America...If refugees' rights are respected in the United States, there's no way that the United States can continue to follow a policy of military intervention based on pacification techniques designed to create refugees. That which was striking and new was the two-dimensional criticism of the activists: against the human rights violators in the refugee-producing region and against those countries that supported the continuation of the wars by military aid. The citizens offering sanctuary addressed the global and the local dimension of the migration movement. We know that migration happens worldwide. It is a global problem. But it is also local. Each migration movement affects local communities where migrants and refugees seek refuge or where they are hosted. Democratic governments are, therefore, trapped in a moral dilemma over how to respond to these two poles - how to respond to needs of people from and in other societies and how to balance these calls for the human rights of non-citizens with the socio-economic and political interests of their own citizens. In the case of the migration from East to West Germany that I mentioned in the beginning, the interests of the refugees and the host government roughly matched. In the case of the Salvadoran migration to the US, they did not. Despite the very different causes and circumstances of the two cases, both deal with the relationship between the individual and the nation state in the context of migration. The control of immigration is the sovereign right of each state. The state can perceive migration issues as a matter of security or as an economic problem of benefit versus burden. Such thinking, however, ignores the moral issue of each emigration, whether politically or economically motivated. What is the appropriate moral response to a boatload or group of refugees or economic migrants landing on the shore of the U.S. or at the German borders? The international community distinguishes between a refugee and an emigrant. Both belong to the group of migrants but have different characteristics. While every refugee is an emigrant, not every emigrant is a refugee. It depends on the causes and reasons of the decision to migrate. The struggle between the sanctuary movement and the U.S. administration in the 1980s reflected the difficulties of a just refugee policy in the context of new, increasingly complex migration movements and causes. Regarding refugees, the laws and the rights catalogue exist and they are very important for framing the room of action. But neither laws not rhetoric substitute the action on which lives are dependent. We, therefore, need to examine the implementation of our human rights policies. It is an issue area in which nation states, international governmental organizations (IGOs) and NGOs need to cooperate in order to overcome the gap between theory and practice. I would like to point out the necessity and importance of NGOs in this field - not as substitutes of other institutions but as additional, important national and international actors for narrowing the gap between the call for universal human rights and the implementation of policies. Refugee issues highlight the point in question. The refugee takes one of the underlying concepts fundamental to foreign policy, the distinction between us and them, nationals and foreigners into her host country. Refugee policy touches upon human rights issues in their international as well as in more domestic and national dimensions. On the one hand, forced migration poses questions about the country of origin and appropriate reactions towards that country. On the other hand, the receiving country is forced to formulate, rethink, and adjust its admission policy as well as its treatment of these newcomers. One can say: Refugee policy consists of a human rights policy abroad and a human rights policy at home. Countries such as the US or Germany have come to realize this interrelationship. The German foreign ministry maintains that a "[h]uman rights policy begins in one's own country. Only then, it is trustworthy and an effective element for an international human rights policy." The call for human rights of any one country can only be as powerful and convincing as the protection of human rights at home and that country's actions abroad. Citizens' groups and NGOs often function as "watchdogs" for more sensible policies. The sanctuary movement for example argued for the integration of non-nationals into the American society due to human rights violations of the U.S. - as perceived by these NGOs. This criticism symbolized a new dimension of national duties in the context of international migration. Social movements and NGOs addressing human rights do not depend on domestic democratic elections and center around certain universal values and principled ideas. These aspects allow them to call upon the dignity of individuals apart from citizenship and nationality. They do not have to take into account the priority of national politics. The groups involved in the sanctuary movement did not attempt to formulate policies in opposition to the state. By trying to act as mediators between the civil society and the state in order to narrow the gap between individuals' rights and states' rights, they wanted to help to find sounder public policies. Their moral eye focused on the necessity of appropriate reactive policies based on human rights in the host country, made aware of the underlying causes, and hinted at possible preventive foreign policy options to fight the root causes. Because reasons of migration are different in each circumstance, it is unrealistic to find a general solution or strategy. Various NGOs play transnational roles by working abroad and at home. This characteristic facilitates their understanding of the fact that helping globally also serves local interests and needs at home and vice versa. Information sharing and expertise is essential for grasping the two-dimensional context of migration: its foreign and domestic dimension. It is also important to make citizens aware that a unilateral migration policy will not eliminate the problem as such. The necessary role of NGOs as mediators and information providers is generally accepted and governments have started to more fully welcome NGOs as valuable sources. Further cooperation between NGOs and state institutions on the international as well as domestic level in training and education programs helps to remind the participating actors of the need to re-interpret the "national interest" in an age in which the borderline between domestic and international issues has become very thin. |