decriminalizing migration

“Criminalising migration is the wrong answer to a complex social phenomenon,” the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg states in a new Issue Paper.

In dissecting the complexity of migration, the Commissioner rightly warns of the implications of language in public debates:

The choice of language is very important to the image which the authorities project to their population and the world. Being an immigrant becomes associated, through the use of language, with illegal acts under the criminal law. All immigrants become tainted by suspicion. Illegal immigration as a concept has the effect of rendering suspicious in the eyes of the population (including public officials) the movement of persons across international borders.