The Human Rights of Migrants
As antiforeigner racism and scapegoating elevated in the eventual period of the 20th century as well as the resistance of the immigrants and those who supported them, alongside work struggles in which undocumented workers have played an-ever more higher role. An immigrant justice movement in the United States antecedes decades and had been building each and every part the Central American solidarity movement which was in the 1980s. In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) due to pressure from the movement (Leary, 2014). The IRCA set up a prior immunity for millions of undocumented immigrants and also initiated new “guest worker” programs, chastised employers who hired undocumented workers who were to analyze the immigration status of each worker. In addition, it took control of the immigrant communities and expanded the border militarization. David Bacon (2013), a journalist and immigrant rights activists has noted the IRCA exhibit the dividing boundary in the current immigrant rights movement.
According to Lorentzen (2014), the immigrant justice movement broke out into mass demonstrations in the U.S during spring provoked by the introduction done by the senate in the U.S of a draconian split of draft legislation, called the Sensenbrenner bill for the name of the promoting senator that would have outlawed undocumented immigrants together with their supporters. The mass protests assisted overthrow the Sensenbrenner bill as well as sparked an acceleration of state suppression and racist social policy and incited the neo-fascist anti-foreigner movement. Among other things, the backlash has stepped-up assaults on immigrant places of work and communities, mass displacements, increased the number of federal immigration administration agents, the assigning of local police arms as coercion agents, the further mobilization of the U.S.-Mexico boundary, anti-foreigner agitation of the mass media, and the initiation at the civic, state, as well as the federal levels of lots of prejudiced anti-immigrant jurisdictive initiatives (Staudt, Payan, & Kruszewski, 2009).
A split occurred in what can only be referred as a terror operation against immigrant societies. Simply, the more “moderate” or advanced wing of the authority pursued a plan of seeking partners in the power halls and reducing mass gathering to a pressure structure on elites to create space at the Latino table, while more basic, wing which was grass root-oriented insisted on building a mass action for immigrant social justice and rights from the ground up. Giugni (2006) argue that the advanced camp has sought colleagues in Congress, organized labor among the democrats, and civil rights of the mainstream as well as the public advocacy assembly, to come up with more favorable immigrant reform act. In order to win concessions from dominant allies, the camp was willing to do away with the interests of some immigrants, for instance, not giving full legalization for every immigrants in exchange for dubitable “paths to citizenship,” and to trade off issues like “guest workers programs,” which have been blamed as indentured bondage and have been displayed to put the labor act in a vulnerable position.
The fundamental grassroots camp was not trying to penetrate the power halls neither was it against lobbying but asserted on prioritizing a constant mass action from below that supplementary collaboration with liberals and also the interests of the deprived majority of the immigrant employees and their families. The camp has also asserted on the importance of linking the immigrant rights act openly and closely with other common, labor and opposition struggles all over the universe for global justice (Giugni & Passy, 2006).
In the broader analysis, these distinct plans represent, two dissimilar class projects of the multi-class society of immigrants and those supporting them: the previous, those middle class level who desire to eliminate racist and legal blockage to their own condition of the class; the eventual, a mass emigrant working class that not only faces legal discrimination and racism but also the acute labor bleeding and survival struggles forced upon them by a rapacious universal capitalism. Bacon (2013) notes, on one side, are well-invested advocacy assemblies in Washington, D.C. linking to the Democratic Party as well as the business association. They compose and discuss immigration reform suggestions that bring together labor supply agendas and increased applications against the migrant. On the other side, are systems based in undocumented societies and among working and political advocates, who protects undocumented foreigners, and who oppose suggestions for greater administrations and work programs with weakened rights (Leary, 2014).
During spring and summer of 2014,the anti- immigrant backlash and the immigrant justice struggle linked in the so-called “invasion” of Central American children, which is a formulated story and a canonical example concerning how a “moral panic” is introduced by the moral producers of the state as well as the permanent groups and employed from above, The “story” started when U.S. undocumented officials assisted Tea Party media outlet which is in Texas, photos indicating children in relocation detention centers, in what occurred to be a well-planned approach to incite “moral panic,” to put the foreigner justice action onto the conservative, to degrade undocumented reform Congress, and above all to acknowledge a current spiral of mobilization and criminalization, as shown by Bacon (2013).
Spread by propaganda from anti-foreigner action, for months the standard media buzzed the public with exaggerated stories about intrusion by Central American children. The exaggerated accounts produced no reference to the bases of such movement in the whole history of U.S. interference in that region, the destruction of U.S. revenge wars followed by capitalism, neo-liberal procedures, and renewed mobilization which have left the area in economic destruction, transmitting social assault, and desperation . The media assumed that there was nothing uprising about the surge; such movement has been occurring for years and regularly increasingly from 2000. The “moral panic” provided anti-foreigner forces the chance to grade some of the allowed racist public expressions in current years.
Lorentzen (2014) argue that the human rights strategies, such as the committee on Migrant laborers as well as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, have specifically stated that even though states have the sovereign rights determining the conditions necessary for entry and staying within their boundaries, it’s their obligation to protect, respect and fulfill the individual’s rights as well. Regardless of their origin, nationality or the immigration status, the human rights under their jurisdiction should be fulfilled. The violations of human rights against migrants are linked closely to the discriminatory practice and law as well as attitudes of xenophobia and prejudice against them. The International human rights standards and instruments have a broad framework concerning the protection of explicit human rights and their freedoms either migrants or not.
In international human rights law, the non-discrimination principle is fundamental and cuts across every international human right instrument whose inspiration is the Universal Declaration, which includes the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. So far, each and every United Nations member States have already ratified out of the nine core international human rights treaties at least one, in addition, 80 percent have already ratified four or even more conventions guaranteeing these rights (Leary, 2014).
The protection of human rights of each and every migrant laborer together with their families as stated in the International Convention is one of the basic treaties of the UN human rights. The international convention has standards for laws and domestic policies recognizing the vulnerabilities of the migrants which are specific. In addition, it enhances humane working and living conditions for the migrant workers, as well as setting out the rights of their family members who are often neglected. Giugni & Passy (2006) highlight that in conjunction with the International Labour Organization Convention 97 on Migration for Employment as well as the Convention 143 on migrant workers; the Convention has established a framework which is comprehensive for the policies of national migration as well as the international cooperation.
The Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) office has helped ensure there is compliance of the migration policies, measures concerning the international human rights as well as the legislation, through supporting the numerous human rights tactics (Lorentzen, 2014). These mechanisms of Human rights, for instance the Committee on Migrant Workers as well as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, have specifically stated that even though states have the sovereign rights determining the conditions necessary for entry and staying within their boundaries, it’s their obligation as well to protect, respect and fulfill the individual’s rights. Regardless of their origin or nationality, nor the immigration status, the human rights under their jurisdiction should be fulfilled (Staudt, Payan & Kruszewski, 2009).
According to Bacon (2013), while exclusion and criminalization policies are not likely to be the effective factor deterring migration, with no doubt it produces harmful and widespread consequences, not only for the well-being of the immigrants individually and their human rights, but also the relations between the host communities and the migrants being hosted. From the longer-term view, the States interests both within their states and the relationship with other States ensures that migration benefits and does not cause any harm to those involved nor affected by it. With exceptions which are narrowly defined, each and every migrant have similar human rights which includes social economic and cultural rights as everyone else. The tests of non-discrimination and equality apply to migrants’ treatment as they do to the others.
