Illegal immigration, despite being a sensitive and heavy topic in today’s news, is far from being a recent phenomenon.

Immigration is the action of moving from a country to live in another permanently, usually in search for better living conditions and a safer environment. However, “illegal” is employed to describe undocumented immigrants. They are people who, in violation of the laws of the host country, move there without a legal permission or an official document 1.

The word illegal has been causing quite a stir for a while, mainly from Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) which describe the term as racist, dehumanizing and contributing to the hostility towards immigrants fleeing war 2.

​

For the longest time, undocumented immigration mostly occurred from the southern to the northern hemisphere. Two opposite poles in the sense that, the northern hemisphere is where most “developed” countries are. Those are countries typically described as having advanced technology and access to quality health care and education 3. Whereas the southern hemisphere is home to the vast majority of “underdeveloped” countries, that suffer most from war and poverty.

​

An upsurge in the number of “illegal” immigrants happened recently, since many major events have occurred in the 20th and the 21st centuries that had a remarkable impact on immigration. Firstly, a global population displacement occurred during and after the Second World war (WWII). The latter’s aftermath made drastic modifications on the demographics of the globe. A large number of people found themselves in hostile territories leading them to flee their countries.

In response to such change, the establishment of the first refugee organization took place. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was founded in 1943 4, to provide, essentially, humanitarian aids to refugees in areas faced by allies’ liberations. In 1947 it was replaced by the International Refugee Organization (IRO) which finally in 1950 evolved into the United Nations High commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 5.

​

Unlike today, where immigration is perceived as an invasion from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, this has not always been the case, since, during and post WWII, a large number of Europeans exuded to north African countries.

The British government files have corroborated that, by shedding light on an evacuation that occurred with the help of the Red Cross, where thousands of Greek children fled to areas in South Asia in the winter of 1941 through many Arab cities such as Tripoli, Cairo, Aleppo, and Baghdad in order to save them from an upcoming starvation.

In 1942 around thousands of Greek refugees were also transported to the Middle East 6 . Moreover, Egypt, has been a reluctant host to many Greek and Yugoslav refugees between 1944 and 1947, and many of them refused to return to Yugoslavia after the war 7.

​

The Second major event that reverberated in the Middle East, at the time, is the establishment of the State of Israel on the 14th of May 1948. Thousands of Palestinian homes and buildings were burned down leading to a Palestinian exodus in the region. A sizable number of Palestinian refugees made it to Egypt, while the majority of them fled to Jordan and Lebanon.

Finally, the uprising of the Arab Spring in late 2010, in result to authoritarian rules in many Arab countries, had different consequences in the region. For Syria, Assad’s regime persisted, leading to the involvement of many foreign countries such as Iran, Turkey, Russia, China, which only complexified the matter. In result to this collusion, Syria today is suffering from a civil war and an estimated more than half of Syria’s pre-war population 13 million people, have been displaced and 5.6 million are refugees (predominantly in neighboring Levant countries)8.

The response to the refugee crisis, that started in 2015, has been drastically different from various countries depending on their economic capacity, history, sociological backgrounds.

​

Today, many people from the host countries have been very unaccepting of these immigrants, describing them as thieves, rapists, and a menace to their jobs, believing that their preponderance in the society will cause a decay in the economy, the social life and will have a contagious effect.

An “invasion”, that is how the arrival of immigrants is conceived by the nationals of some countries today 9. An invasion is a word typically employed in the context of war where a country makes a hostile attack with an armed force on another one.

The use of this strident term implies that from their perspective, the arrival of such large numbers of immigrants could be seen as a subtle invasion, given the fact that they are foreigners coming from a different culture and their spread in the community could constitute a threat to their professional and personal lives.

Such perception, for many, could have only been described as extremist, radical and racist. However, in some cases this view comes from a lived experience.

​

The question now is, can such disdain of immigrants be considered a rational response of the nationals of some host states?

​

The answer to such question is extremely nuanced and this is what will be showcased in this article. On one hand, how illegal immigration can be perceived, as an “invasion” to some countries like Greece and Italy (I), and on the other hand as an innovation in the sense that immigrants are seen as shaping the host state’s society and culture in a positive light like Canada (II).

​

I. The lived experience behind rejecting undocumented immigrants

​

Due to the detrimental effects that certain immigrants have had on the host state, many of the latter nationals are no longer tolerant of immigration (A). Consequently, this intolerance, combined with inadequate economic resources, results in breaches of Public International law protecting immigrants by officials (B).

​

A. Countries facing immigrants and economic crisis at once

​

Since the emerge of the refugee crisis, Greece has been the gate of Europe for 90% of unauthorized immigrants 10. The latter do not come exclusively from Africa and the Middle East, a large number of immigrants transpired from neighboring Balkan countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 11.

Simultaneously, Greece has been suffering from its biggest economic crisis; a huge public debt has led the government to borrow from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union (EU). Such decision had a harmful impact both on immigrant populations and nationals. Lower wages and employment problems started arising, putting at spotlight immigrants as a threat to steal the few available jobs remaining, leaving consequently no opportunities for nationals 12.

 

We had a profound explanation of this situation with our interview with Ms. Christina Dagoupoulos who holds dual citizenships (Greek-Egyptian) and has been witnessing the recent demographic changes happening in Greece, that have left her with many unsettling feelings.

​

According to Ms. Dagoupoulos, unauthorized immigrants are magnifying her country’s economic problems. She believes that vacancies offered to immigrants such as rent-free residencies, the exonerations of paying transportation tickets, and much more, are undue. “Unbearable” that is how she described the fact that immigrants are getting these types of privileges, meanwhile many nationals, who, in consequence to the crisis, could not endure the general costs of living, are now homeless.

​

Our interviewee elucidated that her government should not provide immigrants with the same rights as nationals. She emphasized on the fact that this is happening in result to the rise in power of corrupted politicians who exploit immigrants’ vulnerable situations by offering them the Greek passport in counterpart to their votes in elections. Therefore, they have an undesirable influence on her society via their ballots, as they impose on nationals unwanted politicians.

This attitude of governments, as per our guest, is the direct consequence of the decline of nationalism, which she blamed on the recent globalization that is happening all over the world. She went further by saying that this concept of setting up equally nationals and strangers by guaranteeing them with the same rights emanates from the French revolution.

​

Regarding the last argument, we believe that in reality, a discrepancy always persists between the national born and the stranger, even for the French who were behind this concept.

​

This discrepancy was illustrated by two consecutive decrees.

Firstly, by the decree of August 26th, 1791, France granted French nationality to individuals who acted in the service of Liberty and fought against Tyranny 13. Shortly after, the decree of the 26th of December 1793 ruled that individuals born in another country that were newly acquired with the French nationality, do not have the right to represent the French people.

​

Furthermore, Ms. Christina continued that the presence of immigrants, particularly Pakistanis is jeopardizing to her country. With the recent tensions growing between Greece and Türkiye, Greek nationals fear that these conflicts at one point or another would escalate to a war. Since Pakistanis are known for being allies with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 14, the country would be at great risk of being attacked simultaneously by Turks and Pakistanis.

​

We concluded that Dagoupoulos’ main worry is that the emerge of undocumented immigrants to her country will make a drastic change in her society, perceiving therefore such emerge as a social invasion. Our guest does not hold resentment towards the foreigner, as she made it clear that she has great regard for immigrant groups that strive to integrate into society by engaging in worthwhile work, like Syrians. Instead of others, like Pakistanis in her experience, who want to force their culture and beliefs on Greeks. She thus believes that unless immigrants abide to her culture and society’s norms, their culture cannot be oriented to life in Greece.

​

However, in some other non-European countries, the immerge of specific immigrants is assessed as an invasion per se.

​

Lebanon, for example, has been a reluctant host to Palestinians since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and given the tensions already existing between different communities based on religion that have already risen in a civil war in the past, the arrival of Palestinian immigrants only worsened the situation. As of the 20th of January of 1976, the Palestinian militia massacred most people in the Maronite Christian Town Damour. The event has taken place during the Lebanese civil war in response to the Karantina massacre in which Phalangists or “el Kata’eb” killed 1.000 to 1.5000 Muslim Palestinians 15.

Traumatized by unstoppable conflicts between Muslims and Christians, the Lebanese are horrified that the presence of Palestinians might trigger another civil war in a country where sectarian politics are more entrenched than ever.

​

Faced by prospects of tremendous economic pressure, threat on national security level, and the imposition of their culture, upon the arrival of immigrants, host countries’ reflex is to put more severe conditions on them. Those are the policies Christina wishes that her country makes as she praised and showed her support to Giorgia Meloni’s, the New Prime Minister of Italy. Meloni has been known for being keen on protecting the Italian identity, with the specific goal of “making Italians proud, to waive the Italian flag”. To make this happen, measures are taken to preserve the country’s culture and legacy out of concern that it will be lost forever. While it could be nonsensical to some, it is essential to others. As a new legislation, supported by Meloni, has been introduced, prohibiting Italians from using English and other foreign language in official correspondence 16.

​

While people are worried that immigrants’ entrance would lead to a fall in society, can this feeling justify the mistreatment of these immigrants in violation of international laws? (B)

​

B. A blind eye turned to International Law?

​

Despite numerous attempts, the European Institutions have failed to put in place a single policy to protect refugees and asylum seekers.

Through the 1951 Refugee Convention 17 and the Dublin Convention replaced today by the Dublin II regulation 18, a protection of asylum seekers was expected on both International and European levels.

Later on, the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) intended the inauguration of a common policy on asylum, immigration, and external border control.

​

These attempts proved their failure by a significant number of violations caused by many European countries. This is mainly due to two points:

Firstly, the impulse of each country to protect its sovereignty and external borders by not abiding by these unified policies that could put their country’s safety at risk, as Jean Marc Sauvé, previously Vice President of the French State Council and now president of the French Institute of administrative sciences, further explained in his article 19.

In fact, this was how Ms. Dagoupolos explained that rather than coming from a xenophobic place, her feelings towards illegal immigrants come from a position of worry for the security of her country.

Secondly, the persistent contempt of detention officers, who are the first in line in contact to immigrants, to all what is foreign, makes the experience of immigrants violent, hostile, and unwelcoming, resulting therefore in violations of Public International Law.

​

This was further demonstrated in the famous case of M.S.S v. Belgium and Greece (2011) 20, where both countries were subject to condemnation by the European Court of Justice as they violated numerous international treaties, most notably article 3 of the European Convention on Human rights which forbids torture and degrading treatment.

In this case an undocumented Afghan immigrant made it to Greece through a smuggler. Later on, in reason to the ill treatment he has been receiving at Greek detentions, where he feared his own life, he went to Belgium where he sought Asylum. However, the Belgian authorities expulsed him back to Greece, in violation to the aforementioned Convention. The European Court of Justice described Greece as lacking an effective Asylum protection system. At the time of the verdict Greece was experiencing both an economic downturn and an influx of new immigrant. Being bound by EU policies that state that all refugees should be safeguarded in the first European country they arrive, Greece was under a great deal of pressure as the government claims it is not capable of affording that. As a result, some sort of austerity in the policies of the country towards immigrants started taking place.

​

Notwithstanding, the ill treatment and aversion held against vulnerable immigrants upon their arrival in horrendous conditions is indefensible, as it does not emanate only from economic pressure but also from despise against the unknow as it is referred to as an “invasion”.

Due to their need for labor force and reputation for being cosmopolitan, other nations with lower populations have a history of adjusting to immigration in different ways. But as it will be further demonstrated, their acceptance can occasionally be conditional. (II)

​

II. Nations built by immigrants: inherently accepting of them?

 

As it appears, some countries are more hospitable to immigrants because they are in need of competent labor due to their low population (A). This acceptance, nevertheless, may not be universal and absolute (B).

 

A. A shaky approach towards undocumented immigrants

​

The “new world”, specifically Northern America, as opposed to southern Europe, has been known for having a more liberal and progressive approach towards immigrants, since those who inhabited this land, initially, were immigrants.

 

As for Canada, post WWII, thousands fled there from a devasted Europe as well as from several Asian and African nations. Today, 1 in 4 Canadians 21 entered the country as immigrants, creating what many refer to as “a cultural mosaic”.

 

De facto, the Canadian approach is globally different since the country perceives the unknown as beneficial for the Nation with their skills and knowledge.

 

Namely, the country, as many western European countries, is suffering from infertility and an aging population, leaving it in desperate need of newcomers for labor force. Consequently, as The United States of America (USA), ever since Donald Trump took office, has put in place very tight conditions for non-citizens to obtain work visas and overall unwelcoming policies for immigrants, especially for those emerging from the southern hemisphere. Canada saw an opportunity and stepped in as an alternative to a large number of tech workers in the USA, as it recognizes the contribution that immigrants will make to its economy.

 

With a need of labor force, Canada relies on points immigration system, where immigrants are chosen and filtered based on their education and capabilities, offering immigrants who have failed to obtain the refugee status, permanent residencies based on their work whether in the construction industry, or for those who worked in patient care (measurements taken by the Canadian government post covid’s economic collapse) 22.

​

Representing cheap labor, immigrants have become the target of employers. Temporary foreign workers, in this case, find themselves tied to the country through the contract they signed with their employer that gives them no freedom to work anywhere else 23.

​

Cumulatively, the country’s need for foreigners to ignite the population’s growth is incessant. In fact, the government has just launched a new immigration system in attempt to polarize 1.5 million immigrants by 2025 24.

This consistent need and support for immigrants by Canada has been described by Ms. Dagoupoulos as the consequence of being nationals to a country with no history or culture to protect against strangers.

​

Yet, post the new immigrants’ system publication, the reactions have proved otherwise.

​

On one hand, Quebec’s premier François Legault expressed his concerns with this new system. Legault believes that accommodating non-French speaking immigrants will threaten and eradicate the language. He defended his statement in the name of “having the responsibility to defend the French language, to protect it”25. Quebec’s fear of emerging immigrants that might demand schooling in English is not new, from the 1960s to the 1980s the province closed its doors to immigrants convinced that they menace the practice of the language on the long term 26.

​

On the other hand, the system’s strategy faced a huge backlash from the Canadian public with a main concern: the system will create an imbalance between available jobs and immigrants/nationals. This endorses the same concern of most nationals in Greece.

​

In this whirlwind of change, reality proved that people’s tolerance has a limit and an extent. Regardless how accommodating a country or its people may seem, for it is in the human nature that their « acceptance » will always depend on two things:

• Believing that the government has a robust system capable of handling the large number of immigrants;

• And that the emerge of immigrants will not create an imbalance between available jobs and immigrants/nationals.

​

Moreover, just like any country, Canada is no exception when it comes to its border’s security and safety.

​

Canadian regulations and laws against illegal immigration are very much in place. The country has a welcoming policy towards immigrants nevertheless this patience is not extended for immigrants that just “show up”27.

​

The reason why they are not known for it is largely due to its subtle way of handling undocumented immigrants on borders. In order to prevent giving a loose image on the country’s policies for illegal immigrants, the latter are put in detentions because of their method of arrival. Shockingly, after their release, many detainees have talked about their traumatizing experience during detention and the racist comments they were getting from Canadian officers 28.

According to undocumented immigrants put in detention centers, Canada’s reputation for being cosmopolitan and open to foreigners is all an illusion, reality was much more disappointing to them. But to many others, Canada is the country that offered them to embody the immigrant dream all the while standing true to their values.

​

Thereupon, which one is right, where does the truth reside? (B)

​

B. A circumstantial truth?

​

After examining the different policies and reactions of governments, and nationals, to the arrival of immigrants, what is the Truth?

Is Greece, the forefront of immigrants arriving from Africa and the south, a racist, xenophobic far right led country? Or merely trying to salvage what remains of their fallen economy?

And is Canada actually a welcoming, immigrant friendly Nation? Or its embracement to newcomers is driven by its eagerness for less costly labor force?

 

The truth has been manipulated by the recipients of unsought immigrants at their doors.

 

While some lauded NGOs work such as “Sea Watch” and many others, for stepping in, in response to governments inactions to dying immigrants’ call for help in the sea. Many others, like our interviewee, Ms. Christina, described their work as doomed, as they facilitate the integration of “thugs”, as she would describe, into her society. Her use of the word “thugs” refers to the damaging effect they cause. According to her, many undocumented immigrants, and specifically Pakistanis, rely on the subventions granted by Greek government as a source of income without trying to assimilate to the culture they are in, in a productive manner. As they also try to impose on her society their culture that prohibits pork and alcohol.

​

For some, the truth is that immigrants are criminals. As a country’s leader would scapegoat immigrants in order to pass on anti-immigration laws, by shedding light on their presence and instrumenting it as the main cause for the rise of violence in the country, while turning a blind eye to the country’s deeply troubling policies towards gun control 29.

​

In the same country, when given the attention they required, many immigrants flourished in the society. Ke Huy Quan, an American actor of Vietnamese descent, recently won the Oscar for best actor for his performance in the film “Everything, everywhere all at once”. The actor has commented that his journey started in a boat as his family, originally from Vietnam, came as “illegal” immigrants in America the “melting pot” where different cultures are celebrated, and where his experience was a pleasant one.

​

For others, in order to fulfill their need for skilled workers, the arrival of immigrants is necessary. Accordingly, paving the nation to their arrival by an emotional speech, emphasizing on integration and solidarity, as did famously the previous Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel 30. And after gaining notoriety for being Europe’s most welcoming country for immigrants, with the current ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, in order to make room for arriving Ukrainian immigrants, Germany has swept under the rug many Afghanis immigrants’ stability. Consequently, displacing the latter from their homes 31.

​

On the point of some officers and guards’ inhumane treatment towards immigrants in detention centers that has been condemned by many Humans Rights Organizations. The truth to these officers is that, to maintain order in centers and protect their population against any threat “these people” could represent, they must exert their power on the detainees.

​

Evidently, the truth changes depending on the context. “Truth” and its assimilated notions are the fruit of enculturation” 32, as Pierre Legrand, Professor of Comparative Law. emphasized in his book that there is no such thing as truth, correctness, or objectivity. So, in the end a country’s “objective” response to immigrants, as per her a rational response, is actually subjective, for it has been shaped by many sociological, political, and historical motives.

​

Finally, it is understandable that, for it is within human nature to hold prejudice and bias towards the unknown. But maybe acknowledging that no one would choose this path, or put their children on a boat, knowing that it could end in a new life or potential death, unless they are running away from a crisis, would shift the perspective of the “invaded” fearing and castigating; in other terms, the “invader” and view them for the vulnerable humans they are, in search for a new life away from destruction.

​