Let's talk about migration: between borders, rights and humanity

The history of humanity is, in large part, the history of its migrations. However, in the contemporary world, the phenomenon of migration has been progressively hijacked by narratives that simplify, distort and manipulate it. Instead of understanding its root causes or assuming our collective responsibility, we have opted for fear, criminalization and exclusion.

Migration has gone from being a manifestation of the right to seek a dignified life to becoming an ideological battlefield where States and their governments, many of them democratic, deploy discourses and policies that erode fundamental rights. There is talk of secure borders, demographic threats or cultures at risk, while ignoring the fact that behind every migrant there is a human story, a face, a dignity.

In this context, restrictive immigration policies are not only an ineffective response, but profoundly unjust. Imprisonment, arbitrary deportations, separation of families: these are practices that delegitimize the law as a guarantor of justice. As we have repeatedly pointed out, migration policies based on the friend-enemy logic feed a spiral of intolerance that ends up justifying the unjustifiable.

This is not to deny that States have the right to regulate entry into their territories. But this right cannot be exercised in isolation from the higher principle of human dignity. No policy will be legitimate if it strips the migrant of his or her status as a subject of rights.

For this reason, I have argued that the migration phenomenon requires an interdisciplinary approach. Law, economics and sociology are not enough. It requires an ethical framework that recognizes the complexity of migration and, at the same time, assumes its treatment as a moral duty. We propose a philosophy of migration that articulates social justice, respect for cultural identity, pluralism, and a sense of human responsibility.

This will also be the approach that I will share in the webinar "Migrations and Rights: new routes to justice", promoted by Asesórate, where we will talk about the urgency of opening paths of dialogue, hospitality and commitment. It is certainly possible to build regulatory frameworks that recognize the legitimate concerns of receiving countries, without sacrificing the lives, rights and dignity of those who migrate.

As John Paul II said, the causes that today drive millions to abandon their homes are not an inevitability: they are an ethical challenge to our collective conscience. And in the face of that challenge, silence is not an option.

 

Dr. Tulio Álvarez