@sh76 said
I concur...
when they come here legally.
I wrote this once:
"We can’t open our country’s borders to everyone in the world fleeing bad conditions. That’s a band-aid. No one has enough room, and it doesn’t solve the problem. How can we address the reasons people leave? How do we give people worldwide the power to fix their own countries? I think there is an obvious answer: reform the United Nations.
Refugees flee from countries where their rights are not protected or where the standard of living is bad. We would all want to do that, but the world is too crowded now to permit large numbers of people to suddenly migrate from place to place.
The rise of despotic governments and failed states around the world means the number of refugees is increasing. In some cases, countries might still opt to absorb refugees charitably. However, people in prospective ‘host’ countries have paid for years to establish states which protect their rights. New arrivals crossing the boundary want to take advantage of protection they have not paid for. Who covers the cost of justice for these immigrants? Expecting hosts to pay to protect the rights of all these folks is unfair.
People around the world need to have the power to fix the places where they live.
No one country can do this and most nation-building efforts, however well-intentioned, fail. But it is in everyone’s interest to boost self-determination worldwide, and one of the best ways to do that is by reforming the United Nations into a truly democratic body.
The main problem with the UN is that unelected bureaucrats have no democratic authority to do anything – let alone act to protect people’s rights. Our appointed UN ambassadors are an issue. We The People should be voting for true UN representatives which would give the UN the democratic legitimacy it lacks today.
It follows immediately that the UN should only consist only of nations that conduct free and fair elections. It was always a serious mistake to allow dictatorships to join the UN. What do Russia or China or Syria or Iran add to the community of nations? They only serve to block the UN from protecting people’s rights. Such countries can be excluded from UN representation on the grounds that their governments do not represent their people because they NEVER hold free and fair elections.
As with any democratic government, in addition to elected representatives, the UN would need enumerated powers, checks and balances, and a bill of rights. The UN charter should have clearly delimited powers – primarily to protect the rights of individuals in countries where their own governments refuse to do so. This means holding the power to intervene when states violate some or all of their own citizen’s rights. Oppression and war are the two primary causes of mass/unwanted/illegal immigration, and the UN is the natural body to address such problems.
But is world government really the solution to unchecked immigration? Many people voice concerns about this, but as long as our world government is a fully democratic one, the benefits outweigh the risks. To repeat: voting for representatives, enumerated powers, checks and balances, and a bill of rights are the elements that establish a legitimate democratic government. This not about ‘letting countries be ruled by the UN.’ This is about defending the rights of individuals when their own governments refuse to do so and eliminating wars between nations – the two main causes of refugeeship in the first place.
Once it is legitimate, the UN may vote on a broad range of options to prevent people from needing to flee their own countries. Send aid? Set up peacekeeping forces? Establish trade embargoes? Arm a resistance? Conduct military intervention? Nothing should be off the table when defending people’s rights is at stake. When it comes to member states, which are by definition democratic nations, the UN should have a measured approach which respects the sovereignty of those nations. With non-member, non-democratic states, the UN can act more forcefully.
Countries ruled by dictators will of course hate and oppose this solution – too bad. It will be up the UN NOT to take actions that precipitate world war, but leaving people living for generations under dictatorships isn’t a long-term solution. Despotic governments need to be rolled back and converted to democracy one by one.
This is the world’s problem and the world has to act together to solve it."