This year marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees defining their rights and states’ legal obligations to protect them. The treaty came into effect shortly after the end of the Second World War and was designed to deal with the vast number of refugees across Europe. Since that time, the U.N. refugee agency has expanded to assist in housing and repatriating refugees from around the world, displaced for a variety of reasons, although some critics argue it has become a relic of the post-war period.
Hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants from the Philippines are stranded in Sabah, Malaysia without government recognition or legal rights. They’ve become a vital part of the local economy, but without documentation or paperwork they can’t get support from either government. One young man told Al Jazeera, “I was born here, so I guess I am Malaysian”, but he lives without citizenship or recognition. These young people are left vulnerable after the Malaysian government rounds up and deports their parents who are immigrated without legal documentation. While their children are sometimes forced into crime to earn a living, negative stereotypes poison chances for gaining ground. As another non-citizen in Sabah explained, “We have no documents. It’s easy to blame things on us.” Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas reports from Sabah, Malaysia.
By Axel Caballero, Brave New Foundation, May 18 2011
Georgia is the latest state to pass an anti-immigrant bill like SB1070, with Governor Nathan Deal expected to sign it tomorrow. Georgia is also home to the largest private prison in the country. Coincidence? Not even close. It’s hardly a secret that private prison corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO group, along with right-wing lobbying group ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and a few pocketed state legislators like Russell Pearce in Arizona, have been at it — deliberately promoting and designing laws aimed at incarcerating immigrants and turning the prison system into an incredibly lucrative business.
Police in Mexico’s southern Chiapas state have found 513 migrants inside two trailers bound for the United States. Chiapas state police discovered the migrants on Tuesday while using X-ray equipment on the vehicles at a checkpoint in the outskirts of city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the National Immigration Institute said in a statement. Police have also arrested four people accused of smuggling the migrants, who are from Central and South America and Asia, Chiapas state prosecutors said in a statement.
LONDON: Europe’s much-loved system of border-free travel – allowing movement without passports across 25 countries from Iceland to Greece – will be overhauled in a bid to control the exodus of migrants from North Africa prompted by the so-called Arab Spring. A meeting of EU interior ministers has decided that nations should be allowed to re-establish border controls – as a last resort – to deal with sudden surges in migration or if one EU state fails to control its frontiers with a non-EU neighbour.
