In a story published yesterday by Reuters, a group of agencies of the United Nations and other global organizations was quoted as saying that the governments of the world must respect the rights of all migrants. The statement was undoubtedly a reaction to the recent banishment of the Roma population (also known as gypsies) by the government of France. Of equal force, perhaps, is the enforcement of the anti-illegal immigration law that was passed recently in Arizona, a law known colloquially as S.B. 1070.
The Global Migration Group — an inter-agency organization formed to “promote the wider application of all relevant international and region instruments and norms relating to migration” — expressed concern in the article about the rights of “tens of millions of migrants in ‘irregular’ circumstances around the globe. Such people can include illegal immigrants or migrants whose asylum requests are not considered legitimate.”
There is much troublesome wresting of plain language in that statement. First, the vagaries of the concept of “irregular circumstances” are insurmountable. This is an example of the imprecision inherent in the establishment of any global standard. What is “irregular” in the Sudan, for example, would be quite commonplace in Canada or vice versa. Determining, therefore, when a “relevant norm” relating to immigration has been violated would be nigh on impossible.
Second, there is the problem of using verbal sleight of hand to convert illegal immigration into something “legitimate” and worthy of reconsideration. Admittedly, the statement by the Global Migration Group does not call for amnesty, but it certainly avoids labeling illegals as such, preferring the less irksome (and legally irrelevant) designation of “irregular.”
Such diaphanous description doesn’t stop there, however. In the report issued by the Global Migration Group, there is not a single mention of “illegal immigration.” Rather, the group prefers to use soft scrubbing to remove the stain of lawlessness:
Migrants in an irregular situation are more likely to face discrimination, exclusion, exploitation and abuse at all stages of the migration process. They often face prolonged detention or ill-treatment, and in some cases enslavement, rape or even murder. They are more likely to be targeted by xenophobes and racists, victimized by unscrupulous employers and sexual predators, and can easily fall prey to criminal traffickers and smugglers. Rendered vulnerable by their irregular status, these men, women, and children are often afraid or unable to seek protection and relief from the authorities of countries of origin, transit or destination.
The foregoing miasma of misdirection, misinterpretation, and maundering globalist gibberish is an insult to the legally elected governments of France and Arizona. Every word of that paragraph may be true, but what does it matter with regard to the promulgation of laws designed to protect legal residents and to safeguard and honor the status of citizenship? It doesn’t matter. Disregarding the measures put in place by the people and their duly elected representatives to police the borders and the granting of citizenship is disruptive, disrespectful, and certainly contrary to the United Nation’s self-proclaimed dedication to the rule of law.
Further on in thepaper published by the Global Migration Group, the related concepts of states rights and federalism, the sovereign state of Arizona, and the enactment of S.B. 1070 are confronted as directly as such an organization ever dares.
Too often, states have addressed irregular migration solely throughout the lens of sovereignty, border security or law enforcement, sometimes driven by hostile domestic constituencies. Although states have legitimate interests in securing their borders and exercising immigration controls, such concerns cannot, and indeed as a matter of international law do not, trump the obligations of the State to respect the internationally guaranteed rights of all persons, to protect those rights against abuses, and to fulfill the rights necessary for them to enjoy a life of dignity and security.
Given the provenance of this drivel it is not as shocking as it otherwise would be. The United Nations dares lecture Arizona (and by extension every other state in the United States) on its obligations. Brazenly, this cohort of collectivists demands that Arizona recognize as a “trump” to all its own rights of sovereignty and to all the obligations it owes to its citizens (whose ceding of various of their rights under natural law alone gave birth to the power of that state) the duty and deference it owes to protect the “internationally guaranteed rights of all persons.”
When the United Nations, under the auspices of its Global Forum on Migration and Development initiative, convenes its conference on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico the first week of November, the sovereignty of the states of the United States and their insistence on exercising the rights of self-government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States will be the chief topic of discussion. In fact, the Reuters story cited above makes particular mention of the fact that officials of the United Nations “have already denounced [Arizona’s new immigration law] as discriminatory because it allows police to stop and search individuals on the suspicion that they are illegal immigrants.” Such stops and searches are explicitly proscribed by the Arizona statute. This inarguable fact will likely not be mentioned at the conference.
While the report issued by the Global Migration Group is of no legal effect and is surely not worrisome to the people and legislature of Arizona or any other state, their words and declarations do manifest the tenor of the philosophy of the leadership of the United Nations and of its ultimate destructive designs on the sovereignty of the United States of America. By association, therefore, any member of the Congress of the United States who does not call for the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations is complicit in the relentless, never-changing march toward achievement of the expressed goal of the United Nations: the “trumping”of the sovereignty of the United States.
Photo of a Roma protest in France: AP Images
