“For an integration from and for the people” was the focus of the debates on the theme of migration that occurred on May 14th during the Linking Alternatives 3 Summit, taking place in Lima, Peru.

The objective of the seminars on the subject is to strengthen the participation, voice, and political organization of migrants in the struggles of in social movements as a whole.

It was stated that in Latin America and the Caribbean they are close to 30 million immigrants that represent 5% of the region’s population and in some countries 20% of the population. More than just numbers, the discussion pointed to the political aspect of migration. In other words, they quested the development model imposed on poor countries.

The cause of so much migration, according to the participants, is directly connected to a globalization that does not create new jobs and with economic, social and cultural policies that impede sustainable human development based on the interests and needs of societies.

Close the Borders

The seminar confirmed that as much in Europe as in the United States—and especially after 9/11— more and more mechanisms are being created that impede migrants from arriving in rich countries. In addition, the attempt to stop migrants increases the tendency to criminalize immigration, so that they are seen as a threat from which countries must defend themselves.

These mechanisms are increasingly aggressive, discriminatory, and express a wave of growing xenophobia.

The externalization of borders, armed patrols by land and sea, physical and virtual walls, and the creation of transit zones, are more and more present in African and Central American countries. Migrants must be locked up and always farther from the borders of Europe and the United States.

Number of Dead Migrants Grows

To cite some facts, widely divulged in the debates, more than 11,000 immigrants died between the years 1988 and 2007 in the borders that surround Europe. Of these, 8,000 drowned in the sea and 1,500 died crossing the Sahara desert. Just in 2007, Spain repatriated 55,938 immigrants.

Everything indicates that these figures will continue to grow, and even more so if the European Directive on Return—not to mention on Expulsion, known as the Directive on Shame by social movements—is approved. If it is approved, immigrants could be detained up to 18 months in the Internment Center and could be expelled by a simple act of administrative authority without judicial process. Not even children would escape this policy.

But the debates were not only denunciations. They also presented many proposals, of which the following stand out:

Proposals

Apply pressure and demands to the governments that have not yet signed, ratified and implemented the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Do not criminalize migrants for the simple fact of not having papers and that all should have access to their human rights independent of the place they are found;

To fight against the European Directive on Migration and pressure governments to not sign it;

To defend the free movement of people and to realize a General Amnesty in Latin America with a vision of integrating all peoples;

Finally, the participants demanded that all Immigration Internment Centers be closed and that countries of origin implement job creation policies so that migration is voluntary and not forced as it is currently.

Lima, Peru.

Luiz Bassegio, Grito de las Excluido/as