Geneva 13 January 2013 - On this World Day of Migrants and Refugees, the International Catholic Migration Commission joins the Holy Father in celebrating the humanity, the invitation to solidarity and the offer to share in new hope and energy that migrants and refugees bring to the families, communities and countries that welcome them.

 As Pope Benedict reminds us in his World Day message<, it is important to avoid seeing migrants and refugees as if they are altogether separate, and different; as no more than “victims” or even a “problem”. None of us are separate; migrants and refugees are much more than their moment of most pressing needs, and there is a balance to the rights and duties that point to opportunities for migrants, refugees and their societies to solve challenges like emergencies, welcome and integration. Indeed, there is more that brings us all together than keeps us apart.

 As human beings, we are all in this together

 Migrants and refugees, citizens and residents, families, workers: each has needs but also contributions to make. These needs and contributions are shared “two-way”. As the Holy Father observes, migrants and refugees “meet people who sympathize with the distress and tragedy experienced by others, recognize the value and resources” that migrants and refugees have to offer, “and are open to sharing humanly and materially” with them. In return, and in many cases despite harrowing deprivation or trauma behind them, migrants and refugees “bring with them a sense of trust and hope which has inspired and sustained” them and “enrich their new countries with their professional skills, their social and cultural heritage”. This is very positive reciprocity, and in our experience in every region of the world, far more common than is ever reported. Here the Holy Father encourages greater consideration of “the positive aspects, the potential and the resources which migrations offer.”

Putting the right to migrate and the right not to migrate together: two sides of the same coin

Before any circumstance of being a migrant or refugee—and much more than a reflection of only their harshest experience or legal status, each migrant and refugee is first a human being, indisputable holder of fundamental human rights.

But there is not one fundamental right in migration but two—in fact, two sides of the same coin: the right to migrate and the right not to migrate. While recognizing that “every state has the right to regulate migration” within the bounds of human dignity and the common good, the Church points to the fundamental right of persons to migrate< and “settle where they consider best for the realization of their abilities, aspirations and plans.” At the same time, citing Pope John Paul II twenty years ago, the Holy Father writes, “… even before the right to migrate, there is need to affirm the right not to emigrate, that is, to remain in one’s homeland.” Regrettably, today as before, many are truly forced to migrate by “economic instability, the lack of essential goods, natural disasters, wars and social unrest.”

Working with women, men and children displaced by events in North Africa and the Middle East and with boat people and other migrant victims of violence and trauma crossing deserts and the sea in the Americas, Asia and to Europe and Gulf countries, ICMC welcomes the Pope’s call for:

• orderly migration policies which do “not end up in a hermetic sealing of borders, more severe sanctions against irregular migrants and the adoption of measures meant to discourage new entries”

• “structured multilateral interventions for the development of countries of departure”

• “a greater openness to considering individual cases calling for humanitarian protection more than political asylum”.

 Where their essential survival or dignity is so clearly at stake, migrants and refugees further evoke particular solidarity. Moreover, this “reality of human solidarity, which is a benefit for us all, also imposes a duty.”<

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 We shoulder duties together: to organize migration, protection, welcome and integration

 The Holy Father refers globally and locally to “society where all are active members and responsible for one another’s welfare”. Altogether, we share the duty to respond to migrants and refugees first, in their urgent need and then beyond, in programmes of welcome and integration.

 Working together with migrants and refugees and with Church partners, other civil society organizations, and governments and international bodies like the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the Red Cross-Red Crescent movement, ICMC works daily—and with great hope:

• with Iraqi and Syrian men, women and children fleeing for their lives across borders in the Middle east and Turkey

• on identification, protection, and durable solutions with migrants, internally displaced persons and refugees in Africa, Asia and the (with special attention to unaccompanied children)

• on resettlement, welcome and integration of refugees in US and Europe; and

• on labour migration to Europe

• on global, regional and national policy-building with government and non-government actors for migrant domestic workers, victims of human trafficking and smuggling, boat people and other vulnerable migrants and refugees, on family unity and on development alternatives to forced migration.

 Finally all are called, including migrants and refugees themselves, to promote “real” integration, in the words of Pope Benedict. And he emphasizes: “The process of integration entails rights and duties” of both societies and migrants. That is, not only “attention and concern for the dignified existence of migrants” but also “attention on the part of migrants to the values offered by the society to which they now belong.”

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For more information, please contact:

ICMC Communications Desk
E: info@icmc.net<
T: +0041 (0)22 919 10 20

ICMC statement-World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2013.pdf (529.52 KB)