Ethical Dilemmas of Migration

The movement of people from one place to the other is a phenomenon that has existed for probably almost as long as humanity. Thus, migration marks one persistent dynamic in human history. The reasons for people to decide to migrate can originate from various sources and events. Some of them include war, persecution, and discrimination to name the forceful ones; but also family reunification, better job opportunities and improved lifestyle. The motive for migration also determines whether a person accounts for a “regular” migrant or a refugee. In 2017, more refugees and migrants were on the move. Around the world, over 65 million people (equivalent to the population of Britain) are forcibly displaced. “That includes 22.5m who qualify more narrowly as refugees compared with 16m in 2007. Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iran each host over 1m refugees. But international reaction depends mostly on events in richer countries, notably the numbers of people seeking asylum. In 2012 there were 943,000 registered asylum-seekers globally, the number rose to 3.2m in 2015, before dipping to 2.8m in 2016.” (Roberts, 2017, p. 81). The United Nations stated that 250 million people—roughly the population of Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country—are migrants and the think-tank OECD said that 5 million people migrated permanently to rich countries in 2016, with an average annual rise in recent years of 7% (Roberts, 2017, p. 81).

The globalizing world, like the one we are living in today, undeniably brings many advantages with it. Examples include faster flows of technology, information and services, and increased employment opportunities to name at least a few. On the downside, globalization has led the gap between the rich and the poor to increase, it compromises the environment and it has brought about unfair working conditions for many employees, especially in the developing world (Haensel & Garcia-Zamor, 2016a).

Although the migration problem has long existed in the US near the border with Mexico and along the Florida coasts, the excessive number of refugees invading the European countries is a new phenomenon. The large influx of refugees currently poses huge challenges to Europe in general and to the EU in particular. It is very complicated for EU policy makers to address the issue of the refugees. Any effective policy there would require an agreement between 28 autonomous governments. Some policy initiatives could solve or at least control the present chaos, disorder, and uncertainty created by the arrival of this unprecedented number of refugees. Furthermore, they might diminish the uneven global development without creating an unsustainable economic and political challenge to the European countries (Garcia-Zamor, 2017).

The migration and refugee crisis has left states divided regarding how to respond both nationally and internationally. Among EU nations, asylum applications have been seen to be unevenly distributed with some politicians labelling migrants as security concern and an economic issue. This singular fact has created renewed nationalist tensions. With the increase in the number of migrants entering EU countries, EU leaders and aid agencies have persistently called for a unified policy in order to address the migration problem. However, such attempts have ended in dead ends. Some critics blame EU’s failure to strengthen its external borders to the lack of a closer union with more powers shifted to the center. Yet, the evidence is that neither European voters nor their elected governments want this. If anything, public opinion favors the reverse.

The US, often described as a nation of immigrants, has a history of immigration policy that reaches back several centuries. The country went through different phases of welcoming and even being in need of immigrants and their labor, to drastically restricting immigration. Currently, immigration is one of the most discussed subjects in the US, not only by policy makers, but by the media, and the population. One salient question is how to secure the borders. By borders it is usually referred to the Southern border with Mexico, the border many politicians and a large proportion of the US population is most eager to completely control. This task however has proven to be a difficult one. Another question is if borders can be controlled. Previously implemented strategies and their outcomes as well as their sometimes unforeseen consequences dominate the debate. Questionable is what effects immigration has on the US and who profits from it. Contrary to the widely spread assumption that immigration mainly entails negative consequences for the recipient county, this research finds that the US as a recipient country benefits vastly from immigration and even relies on it to some extent (Haensel and Garcia-Zamor, 2016b).

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza wrote that a confluence of powerful interests prevents the passage of laws that would ameliorate the situation of undocumented migrants and their families. The majority of immigration policies implemented in the late twentieth century and debated in Congress in the early twenty-first century have been more effective at making life difficult for immigrants than at achieving any long-term solutions that could benefit both citizens and noncitizens. None of these measures provide a real solution to the crisis of deaths at the border or to the crisis of a large marginalized population in the US (Golash-Boza, 2012). She wrote her book to change the discourse on undocumented migration—to compel people to see that immigrants are not commodities or potential terrorists, but human beings with fundamental rights. The evidence she discussed shows that it will be difficult to change this discourse, partly because of the powerful interests behind the dehumanization of migrants. She demonstrated how immigration policies violate principles enshrined in human rights doctrine and set out a vision of how immigration policy looks in a world where human rights were valued and respected (Golash-Boza, 2012).

Three prominent ethical theories will be used to guide the actions of policy makers who have to decide on the fate of those who are seeking asylum. The analysis is being done using the current situation of the migrants who are trying to find refuge in Europe. The massive number of migrants from countries at war who are arriving in European countries poses an unprecedented burdensome problem that is creating some ethical and moral dilemmas for European policy makers.

Migration accounts for one of the oldest phenomena in human history. Defined as the movement of people, migration has been happening at all times; sometimes in greater, sometimes in smaller waves, sometimes for economic reasons, other times because of persecution or war. All of these situations are unique and can and have been dealt with in different manners by migrants as well as sending and receiving countries. The current refugee crisis the EU is dealing with, as well as the immigration question in the US especially in terms of immigration through the southern borders, confronts the international community with the question of morality in immigration policy once again.