Immigration With Tears
Published: 16 October 2013 By Abiodun Giwa
Unfortunate incidents of sinking boats in the Mediterrenian Sea, where scores of Africans and Asians have been losing their lives, in attempt to cross to Europe have brought the issue of immigration from poor countries to the rich countries to the fora of public attention.
The death of over 300 Africans in Lampedusa has intensified the debate about the unwillingness of European countries to accommodate deluge of African migrants, the danger of traveling in unfit boats and the need to seek a permanent solution to the trend in migration that has become a threat to human lives.
Just as the news and lamentation of the first boat that capsized and resulted to the mass death of African migrants early in October was ebbing and the world looking was looking forward to the state burial the Italian government had promised the dead, another news surfaced of another boat accident and that made the BBC captioned a story about boat accidents in the Mediterrenean as turning the sea into a cemetery. One factor is sure, and it is that the world may not have witnessed that last of accidents in the Lampedusa waters, in spite of the European Union’s promise to set up a monitor of the area to save lives. It is immigration with tears that they are only paying lip service to arrest.
Italy had said that the EU cannot expect it alone to bare the brunt of the exodus of people into the continent from Africa and Asia. Italy is a border to the sea, one of the easiest and closest countries among southern nations to reach in Europe by boat from the Mediterrenean. When these migrants disperse in Lampedusa, it means a journey to other European countries where they hope to settle down and begin a new life. But they are hardly accorded a warm welcome, since the asylum application the migrants rely upon to finding their feet on the ground is not easily granted.
But many migrants still believe that the struggle it entails to find a new home from home is better than wasting away in countries they call home that are no longer relevant for their survival. Every human believe that life is about survival and that this is not about tribe, color or gender. Known and recorded immigration can be traced to the Europeans’ efforts in the late fifteenth century in search of markets for their products, which later led to various European interests in Africa and Asia, and later the Americas.
Migration has taken different forms; willing and forceful migration In the course of time, it has become manifest that some areas of the world are more developed than the others. The areas that are more developed have witnessed the labor of their own people and others forced to work in difficult labors against their will. Secondly, modernization of governance has led to the introduction of immigration control toward avoiding over population and to enhance resource management. But human nature is causing evasion of barriers put in place by rich countries to discourage immigration from less developed countries.
Human rights activists have decried what they call the cage that Europe has created against people migrating from poor countries. They say it is the cause for people resorting to traveling through dangerous avenues to reach Europe, because they have been denied the easy and legal access that is less dangerous. Despite the poor economies of some European countries, they are still places of choice for poor Africa and Asia immigrants, who prefers them to their poorer countries. Some Africans in Europe say they prefer to live in these poor European countries than traveling to rich northern European countries for reasons of adaptation and difficulty getting papers to settle down.
America is regarded as the most liberal country with immigration. No other country in the world can have a number close 12 million as yet to be regularized immigrants whose struggle for regularization remains intense. The United Kingdom Border Control seeks and deport people without papers at will. The Telegraph Newspapers just reported a number less than a million of EU migrants living in UK without papers, and a big mole is made out of it. One can be sure never to count up to half of that number for non EU migrants without papers.
The death of over 300 Africans in Lampedusa has intensified the debate about the unwillingness of European countries to accommodate deluge of African migrants, the danger of traveling in unfit boats and the need to seek a permanent solution to the trend in migration that has become a threat to human lives.
Just as the news and lamentation of the first boat that capsized and resulted to the mass death of African migrants early in October was ebbing and the world looking was looking forward to the state burial the Italian government had promised the dead, another news surfaced of another boat accident and that made the BBC captioned a story about boat accidents in the Mediterrenean as turning the sea into a cemetery. One factor is sure, and it is that the world may not have witnessed that last of accidents in the Lampedusa waters, in spite of the European Union’s promise to set up a monitor of the area to save lives. It is immigration with tears that they are only paying lip service to arrest.
Italy had said that the EU cannot expect it alone to bare the brunt of the exodus of people into the continent from Africa and Asia. Italy is a border to the sea, one of the easiest and closest countries among southern nations to reach in Europe by boat from the Mediterrenean. When these migrants disperse in Lampedusa, it means a journey to other European countries where they hope to settle down and begin a new life. But they are hardly accorded a warm welcome, since the asylum application the migrants rely upon to finding their feet on the ground is not easily granted.
But many migrants still believe that the struggle it entails to find a new home from home is better than wasting away in countries they call home that are no longer relevant for their survival. Every human believe that life is about survival and that this is not about tribe, color or gender. Known and recorded immigration can be traced to the Europeans’ efforts in the late fifteenth century in search of markets for their products, which later led to various European interests in Africa and Asia, and later the Americas.
Migration has taken different forms; willing and forceful migration In the course of time, it has become manifest that some areas of the world are more developed than the others. The areas that are more developed have witnessed the labor of their own people and others forced to work in difficult labors against their will. Secondly, modernization of governance has led to the introduction of immigration control toward avoiding over population and to enhance resource management. But human nature is causing evasion of barriers put in place by rich countries to discourage immigration from less developed countries.
Human rights activists have decried what they call the cage that Europe has created against people migrating from poor countries. They say it is the cause for people resorting to traveling through dangerous avenues to reach Europe, because they have been denied the easy and legal access that is less dangerous. Despite the poor economies of some European countries, they are still places of choice for poor Africa and Asia immigrants, who prefers them to their poorer countries. Some Africans in Europe say they prefer to live in these poor European countries than traveling to rich northern European countries for reasons of adaptation and difficulty getting papers to settle down.
America is regarded as the most liberal country with immigration. No other country in the world can have a number close 12 million as yet to be regularized immigrants whose struggle for regularization remains intense. The United Kingdom Border Control seeks and deport people without papers at will. The Telegraph Newspapers just reported a number less than a million of EU migrants living in UK without papers, and a big mole is made out of it. One can be sure never to count up to half of that number for non EU migrants without papers.
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