What Is The Relationship Between The Immigrants And Security (Essay Sample)

NATURE OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION Name Course Professor University Date Nature Of The Relationship Between Security And Immigration Security and immigration in the current dispensation are two things that cannot be isolated without ethical and moral issues coming up. State authorities to safeguard its borders often rub shoulders the wrong way with human rights activists. Immigrants most of the time pose a security threat to the host country, this security threat can be real or perceived. Now, the challenge is to draw a clear dichotomy between the two. Although, majority of the immigrants can be genuine and pose no security threat at all some may be terrorists with ulterior motives disguised as immigrants. For the friction between security and immigration to find an amicable and lasting solution then definitely a re-look at immigration policies must be carried out. Gatekeepers, state agents and other stakeholders should be involved right from the onset in an effort to draw a clear conclusion on who should be vetted as non security threat and who should be treated a security threat. When all this factors will be put into consideration then security and Immigration will become a thing of the past. Secularization Secularization was coined by Ole Waiver in the year 1995, it refers to the way by which the state or government looks at its citizens loosely refereed to as subjects to becoming items of security. They use their subjects as a shield to implement unique decisions to outside forces that could otherwise, not even be a security threat. Many theories and approaches to immigration has been postulated this paper will highlight Non-entree , containment and regionalization approaches. Non-entree Approach This approach demands that no refugee should enter a particular region and demanding asylum. This was necessitated by the fact that in the 1990s many immigrants went to western countries looking for asylum. Globalization increased a significantly increased immigrants to other western countries and lastly the collapse of communist and social states led to violence that made many to flee to Europe. As a result European countries decide to close its borders to immigrants. Which is now called the non-entree regime. Their were negative consequences to the immigrants, many had lost property and families, the ground was hostile and they could not get any assistance in Europe, they were exposed, to human degrading conditions. However, on the part of European countries it meant economic stability and above all its territories were secured. Containment Approach Containment approach focuses on how to contain the refugee situation and also by resettling the refugees. Its presupposes assistance to contain the situation before it goes out of hand and neutralizing any insurgence that might escalate the already bad situation. This approach to refugees has many benefits than demerits since it gives back a sense of entitlement and ownership to the affected community. Regionalization Approach Regionalization approach says that refugees must be settled within their geographical regions. African refugees must remain in African and that pattern applies to world over. This approach is dangerous in the sense that a region can be war tone and insufficient basic needs to settle the high populations. We still vividly recall the terror attack on the twin towers in the USA. It came as a shock to many worldwide. The unfortunate incident has been debated, analyzed by security experts both in the United States of America and all other corners of this world. One outstanding conclusion or the agreeable statement is that it was not by the hand of an American citizen but rather by a foreign and for that case from a network of immigrants. This isolated case and many other security breaches across the world, be it gun violence, terrorism, suicide and so forth an accusing finger has been pointed at immigrants. For a long period of time the UN has had its stand on immigration and other international treaties that deem appropriate for member states to adopt and implement. Quite often, this treaties has led to the suffering and agony of this nations through terrorism. Security has been defined by many people over a long period of time as the defense of a state against external attack, protection of its citizens interests, its geographical boundaries hence culminating into independence and sovereignty. Matters to do with internal aggression were not given a priority and were not actually anticipated hence internal security became a soft target to terrorist groups and gangs. These terrorist groups are either immigrants or associated, related, trained, or sympathizers of immigrants. For us to comprehensively address the issue of security and immigration the following measures must be implement; tightening security at the borders, rigorous and intensive visa vetting process, career assessment, prosecution and deportation of criminal elements and lastly digitizing registration of persons. In addition, legislators should give good legislations and amend the existing ones to cut loose criminal elements within their boundaries, administrative implementation will be very key to ensure the success of the above processes. Taking cognizance of this suggestions it should be remembered that only the state cannot achieve, but too non state actors have the highest percentage of ensuring the success of the whole process. Both the state and non-state working as complimenting partners and not competitors. Non state actors who include the private sector, market shareholders and human rights activists, universities, air companies, employer federations, trade unionists, hospitality industry, religious bodies, civil servants and Non governmental organizations (Source One). These firms are most of the time bound by international treaties which they are signatory to, as a result the state works in cooperation with with or sub contracts them in implementation of the immigration and security policies that they will have legislated or enacted. To this extent we cannot deny the fact that these organizations have moved away from merely being contractors to main actors in matters security and immigration. When these entities work in harmony they are clear at the back of their minds that the benefits for such smooth running will economic and monetary, while hitches and lack of cooperation and unethical contacts will definitely lead to sanctions and losses. Private organizations therefore, have a burden to understand and ensure that immigration policies are adhered to whereas the government will be shouldered to ensuring that trade, labour, tourism and commerce is smooth. Its a win win for both the state and private sector. Over the years many governments in the world have decentralized its operations. Many state functions have been devolved to the local sector. Security issues still remained a challenge to the state if it remained centralized so their was need to localize some operations to achieve the desired results. This decision has often come under strong criticism from international organizations and foreign rights activists have not taken this lying down. The local actors have enacted policies and put controls that heavily undermines immigrants and are detrimental. State, actors had no choice but to do that because they are the mercy of the local community for votes and financial support during elections and at the same time supporting their policies. Many local governments are given exclusive powers to determine marriages between locals and foreigners. Employment opportunities in many devolved units have become a preserve of the locals hence making immigrants automatically unqualified to hold such positions. Such policies and enactments by the local actors has had a bad impact on immigration rights (Dallal 1998). Many immigrants find it had to settle in certain jurisdictions hence to a large extend minimizing on the effects of the terrorism or insecurity that might have been caused by bad elements in this places. Case in point is in France. Government dynamics are changing very fast and as a result the state has given local players he mandate to monitor, track down and control immigration. Local schools will deny admission of children to undocumented immigrants. Such a policy is dangerous since the immigrants will have no reason to enter a certain country or jurisdiction without documentation. In the same view, other privileges to citizens are denied, such as social protection, child allowances, health insurances, pensions and housing schemes. This automatically deters immigrants from settling. Such delegation of state functions to authorities has had its fair share of problems. Outstanding is the constant wrangling between the tiers of government. Superiority wars has derailed the success and often threaten to breakdown the security structure as a whole. Logical coherence is lost between the wrangles, human rights goes down the drain. A careful and clear policies should be drawn with all actors on table to avoid overlapping of responsibilities, conflict of interests and other unnecessary power struggles. Security and immigration cannot only be left to the state actors, private sector and the local government. International community too has a stake in this. International community provides a sound coordination of immigration regulation and impl...