U.S. Warned To Respect Illegal Immigrants’ Rights

Chastising a global movement to crack down on illegal immigration, the famously corrupt United Nations warns that governments worldwide must respect and protect the rights of all “migrants in an irregular situation.”

Aimed largely at Arizona’s new immigration control law and the recent French expulsions of Roma migrants, the rather amusing U.N. admonition calls upon states to ensure that their laws conform with “international human rights standards and guarantees at all stages of the migration process.”

That means that local governments must protect illegal immigrants’ “fundamental rights,” including the right to be free from “arbitrary arrest or detention” as well as the right to “seek and enjoy asylum from persecution.” Illegal aliens must also have economic, social and cultural rights, which include health, adequate housing, education and favorable conditions of work,” according to the U.N.

States like Arizona that pass measures to curb illegal immigration are “driven by hostile domestic constituencies,” the U.N. asserts. Too often these states address “irregular migration solely through the lens of sovereignty, border security or law enforcement…” Deep stuff from the scandal-plagued group that’s largely sustained with American tax dollars.

Buried in the U.N.’s enlightening two-page statement is an acknowledgement that states have legitimate interests in securing their borders and exercising immigration control. However, those concerns cannot trump the obligations to respect international law which guarantees all persons—even “migrants in an irregular situation—the necessary rights to enjoy a “life of dignity and security.”

The warning provokes outrage as well as laughter considering the U.N.’s own Human Rights Council is best known for the oppressive regimes that comprise it. Among them are the world’s worst human rights violators, including Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China and Russia. These countries don’t even offer their own citizens rights or protections, much less to transitional migrants.