Key Issues of International Migration

It’s bizarre but true. This man disguised as a car seat tried to sneak through the U.S. border in vain. It’s not a new phenomenon, commuters have been successfully doing this of late, however, this guy was a bit unlucky. Truly speaking, the trick can easily bluff anybody, but only when sniffer dogs are not around.

Freedom of Movement

• Problems occur when people cross international boundaries

• There is a tension between the right to migrate and government control over the movement of people across its frontiers

• A governments prime duty is to protect the national good – thus controlling immigration to avoid problems caused when speed or volume of immigration gets out of hand

Emergency Situations

• A million or more people fled the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 in 5 days seeking sanctuary in Zaire and Tanzania

• The mass exodus of the boat people from Vietnam after communists overran the country in 1975 –over 50,000 of the them fled to the tiny and congested island of Hong Kong

The Right to Work

• Looking back at the example of Turkish workers in Germany after the war

• What happens if the work dries up –should people be forced to move on to other areas where work is plentiful?

• European Union – open door policy

Ethnic Cleansing• In 1990 Kosovo was a province of the then Yugoslavia• Collapse of Communist control in 1991 saw the break up of

Yugoslavia as a nation state.

•Kosovo became part of an enlarged Serbia.-of Kosovo’s 2 million people 90% were ethnic Albanians and only 6% Serbian•the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) supported by the majority of ethnic Albanians came out in public rebellion against Serbian rule•Serbian government victimised anyone thought to be connected to the KLA and tried to ‘persuade’ Albanians to emigrate to Macedonia or Albania.

•Serbians were ethnic cleansed by killing or forcing migration •NATO responded by launching air strikes against military targets in 1999

•Fears of more genocides by the Serbians caused tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians to flee the country

•Serbian forces eventually, under limitary pressure, agreed to withdraw and Albanian refugees returned under NATO protection – Albanians retaliated against the Serbians forcing them to flee –ethnic cleansing again with a different target group

Refugees and asylum seekers

• Refugees are people who cannot return to their country because of fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or social grouping.

- Most refugees come from Africa• Political Asylum – granted to those whose

survival or well-being is seriously threatened if they remain where they are

• Read through p150-152