The Overlooked Role of Irregular Migrants
This week Greta Thunberg claimed that her boat sailing to Gaza picked up four irregular migrants from Sudan who were escaping capture by the Libyan authorities. While this rescue has grabbed media attention across the world, it is only one of countless such stories over recent years. The waters that connect West Asia and North Africa to Europe are, at times, filled with boats of irregular migrants seeking a better life away from wars, droughts, famines, or economic insecurity. The issue of migrants, particularly irregular migrants, increasingly dominates our newspapers and politics, leading to a rise in populism and the far right in many areas. But what is rarely discussed is how irregular migrants not only contribute to, but prop up, the ageing populations and creaking systems in many European countries.
No one knows whether irregular migration is increasing or decreasing. Unsurprisingly, we have no statistics on the actual numbers of people who cross borders in irregular ways. Yet the prominence of the topic in daily life might make one think that a tidal wave of irregular migrants has arrived in Europe. And that rhetoric increasingly dehumanises irregular migrants. This increased and increasingly-negative attention might be owing to financial pressures – history shows us that with recessions and depressions comes the rise of nationalism and xenophobia. It may be based on security concerns and the global threat of terrorism. Regardless of its basis, the result is a general failure to acknowledge let alone uphold the human rights of migrants or to acknowledge the economic and social role many play in the countries to which they move.
Human rights are held by all individuals by virtue of them being human. A person does not lose his status as a human simply because s/he is an irregular migrant. Crossing a border in contravention of a law does not mean an individual is no longer human. So we need to find a way to uphold irregular migrants’ rights while also recognising the need to ensure that our economies and societies continue in the trajectory that is needed. This is not an easy task, but it is long overdue.
Significant resources, including time and money, are deployed to abuse the human rights of migrants. They are frequently rounded up, as is occurring currently in the USA, and then deported without access to justice. Often they are denied access to adequate housing, food and healthcare. Many children who are irregular migrants simply disappear at the hands of traffickers. The media reports occasionally focus on the death of a migrant during deportation, but the daily systematic violations are swept under the carpet despite the legal obligations on states under the Refugee Convention (1951) and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990), amongst other pivotal legal texts.
Irregular migrants take jobs that many Europeans, of all classes and levels of education, refuse to. These range from picking fruits and vegetables in harvest times, to social care for the elderly, disabled or infirm, or to cleaning buildings and working in construction. Now, of course, those irregular migrants do not have the legal protections to demand minimum wage – let alone wages commensurate with the jobs they are doing – or the implementation of health and safety laws. Their work at lower prices drives down the opportunities for those people wanting to work legitimately. And at the same time, without those irregular migrants in the workforce, strawberries would cost $20 per punnet rather than $3. And people being cared for in their own homes would not be able to afford such care, leading to the need for the state to step in and finance as well as organise it.
When we talk about irregular migrants we need to do so carefully and in a nuanced and holistic manner. Irregular migration exposes a structural deficit of electoral democracies because they do not have a vote, and politicians require votes for re-election. So there is no incentive for politicians to speak out on behalf of those irregular migrants. Indeed, doing so often harms their careers. Therefore, those of us who do have a vote need to make clear to politicians that this is an issue we care about. We need to highlight that this issue is not going away, that irregular migrants are crucial to our economies and societies, and that we need to adapt and change our laws and regulations to prevent the harms they currently experience.
