Argument: Migrants ought to have a right to family reunification.

The right to family is widely recognized as an essential human right. Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that the family is the fundamental unit of society. Within the right to family is the right to family reunification for migrants who are separated from their loved ones. The Human Rights Education Associates argue, “states are obliged to facilitate contacts and deal with requests to enter or leave a state party for the purpose of reunification in a humane and expeditious manner.” [1] This right is especially important for refugees, who have often been torn from their families by force, and although they have not been separated by force economic migrants are also separated from their families and at the very least should be able to visit their families, and it is not granted by many countries.

[1] Asmita Naik, “The Right to Family,” Human Rights Education Associates,” Accessed June 30, 2011, http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=425 .

Candidate 1: "The receiving countries would not accept a regulatory body. The current international regulatory bodies such as the WTO and World Bank are essentially run by the rich countries for the benefit of the rich countries and so they accept it. Any body regulating migrants’ rights would, however, be doing the opposite-- benefiting the poorest -- meaning the rich countries would try to prevent the creation of such an organisation.

In the unlikely event that the regulatory body could be created it would face a gargantuan task. How could global migration be monitored and regulated by an international body when even national bodies in rich countries are not able to keep track of all migrants in their nations? Yet the international body would also have to monitor the conditions of migrants in many much poorer countries where the infrastructure currently does not exist."
Candidate 2: "The effect of migration on unemployment is actually positive: it provides cheap labor for receiving countries, and lowers the supply of labor in source countries where employers can often not afford to pay sufficient wages to their workers. The claim that immigrants take jobs away from native citizens is unfounded. In the United States, for example, visa applications for skilled foreign workers are extremely difficult to receive and are limited to a small number of people. Foreign students at U.S. universities even need special authorization to work a summer job. Immigrants cannot undercut U.S. workers wages, taking their job away for less money, because foreign workers must be paid a minimum salary, mandated by law. [1] Even illegal immigrants who do not follow these regulations tend to take very-low-paying jobs that are unwanted by U.S. citizens and that would not otherwise exist.

[1] Farhad Sethna, “Immigrants Don’t Take Away U.S. Jobs!” Immigration Law Blog, July 9, 2009, accessed June 30, 2011, http://blog.immigration-america.com/archives/131 ."
Candidate 3: "While every state may have different issues and problems, the human rights of individuals must be protected by all of them. States may choose to protect their national identity and tradition through museums and festivals and other cultural institutions; it is not necessary that they keep migrants out, or suppress those who have already immigrated."
Candidate 4: "The receiving countries to which most migrants move are the richest countries in the world so are able to afford increased protection. While migrants may sometimes cost these countries money in services like healthcare they are in countries that can afford to pay this cost. It should also not be assumed that migrants just take from the public purse. As most migrants are legal they also pay taxes. Even those who are illegal will still pay some taxes such as VAT or duties on cigarettes and alcohol. The UK government estimates that “in 1999/2000, ﬁrst generation migrants in the UK contributed £31.2 billion in taxes and consumed £28.8 billion in beneﬁts and public services – a net ﬁscal contribution of £2.5 billion”. [1] This will obviously vary from country to country but stories that immigrants are costing huge amounts and putting nothing into the collective pot are plain wrong.

[1] Home Office, The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration, A Cross-Departmental Submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, October 2007, p.8, http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm72/7237/7237.pdf"
Candidate 5: "There is plenty of international law on the books, and it is legitimate when it protects rights that ought to be universal for the individual, no matter what country you are in. The right to have a family is not a Chilean right, or a German right, or a Malaysian right; it is a human right. As is the right to work without being harassed. The huge increase in migration over the past two decades shows that individual well-being has developed into a more important concern in the world today than state sovereignty. Migrant protections are moral because they reflect this change."
Candidate 6: "The proposed right of family reunification is too much of a burden on receiving countries, making it an obstacle to a migrant rights treaty. Indeed, states have levelled as an argument against the Migrant Workers Convention, and against other possible international migrant treaties, concerns about a robust right of family reunification to all migrant workers present in migrant-receiving countries. This could offer family members a right to migrate into the state in question, resulting in large increases in population size. And, there is no doubt that the text of the Migrant Workers Convention aims to create a "right" to family reunification. Even if it provides flexibility on how a nation attempts to facilitate reunification, it still requires that states reunite families in some way. Under this treaty, therefore, any migrant could sue the state for not allowing his family (and perhaps extended family) to immigrate as well. In overpopulated and strained migrant-receiving countries, particularly in Western Europe, such a proposition is untenable, which is why so many migrant-receiving nations oppose the treaty."
Candidate 7: "In most democratic, developed countries—which are those that receive the most immigrants—people share equal rights in the workplace, as long as they immigrated legally. People who broke the law to come to the country do not deserve these rights. Because they usually come to work, the workplace is even the ideal place to discover illegal immigrants. Not only are they not allowed to unionize, but they are not allowed to get paid. Workplace rights do not need to be strengthened for legal migrants, and they should not be for illegal migrants. Similarly it is impossible for the conditions for illegal migrants to be improved; if they are found they will be deported and so there is no need to improve their conditions, although of course they should be well treated while in the process of deportation. Moreover improving minimum conditions would be counterproductive as they would attract more migrants to immigrate illegally knowing that they will get minimum living conditions that may well be considerably better than those that they had in their home country."
Candidate 8: "Migrant rights are already protected under human rights law. If a nation violates existing international human rights law against a migrant, perhaps with exploitative working conditions, wrongful imprisonment, seizure of property, discrimination, or violence, existing international law already adequately protects them. There is no need to expand human rights law to create a separate category and separate protections for migrants. Even if the international community decided it wanted to better protect the human rights of migrants, an international treaty will not necessarily advance that cause, as international law has proven to be very difficult to enforce. This will continue to be a problem into the foreseeable future."
Candidate 9: "Those who are being ‘drained’ from the source countries are those who are more highly skilled and so in less need of protections in the first place as these people are leaving to find much more highly skilled and therefore highly paid jobs. The ‘brain drain’ may not be a drain at all, either on the source countries or the receiving country. In fact the ‘brain drain’ might be better considered as a ‘brain gain’. This is because the lure of migration means that individuals are much more likely to increase their education or learn skills with the intention of migrating. This decision to increase their human capital is a decision that would not have been made if the possibility of migration was not present. Of course in the short term much of this gain will migrate abroad as intended some will not and others will return home later. The result is therefore that both the source country and the receiving country have more highly skilled workforces. [1]

[1] Stark, Oded, ‘The New Economics of the Brain Drain’, World Economics, Vol 6, No. 2, April – June 2005, pp.137-140, p.137/8, http://ostark.uni-klu.ac.at/publications/2005/THE%20NEW%20ECONOMICS%20OF%20THE%20BRAIN%20DRAIN%20World%20Economics%20Vol.%206%20No.%202%20April-June%202005_neu.pdf"
Candidate 10: "Migration puts too heavy a burden on receiving countries, and it essentially means giving up on source countries. It is not a mechanism of the market, but rather an unfair system of taking money from taxpayers in certain countries and giving it to people other countries, this money is then sent abroad and spend abroad resulting in a net loss to the economy. Not all migration is bad, but legislation that would protect the right of immigrants to send money home would solidify this unfair system. Remittances are a short-term fix. If migrants are not allowed to send home remittances, it is possible that the most skilled workers would stay in their home country and work to rebuild the economy for the long-term.

The supposed intangible benefit to receiving countries of “innovation and invention” is much less important than the real cost that these countries feel as a result from the unemployment and increased cost of health, education, and welfare systems that migrants cause."

The proposed right of family reunification is too much of a burden on receiving countries, making it an obstacle to a migrant rights treaty. Indeed, states have levelled as an argument against the Migrant Workers Convention, and against other possible international migrant treaties, concerns about a robust right of family reunification to all migrant workers present in migrant-receiving countries. This could offer family members a right to migrate into the state in question, resulting in large increases in population size. And, there is no doubt that the text of the Migrant Workers Convention aims to create a "right" to family reunification. Even if it provides flexibility on how a nation attempts to facilitate reunification, it still requires that states reunite families in some way. Under this treaty, therefore, any migrant could sue the state for not allowing his family (and perhaps extended family) to immigrate as well. In overpopulated and strained migrant-receiving countries, particularly in Western Europe, such a proposition is untenable, which is why so many migrant-receiving nations oppose the treaty.
