Illegal Immigration - Legal and Political Status

Legal and Political Status

See also: Illegal immigration to the United States, Immigration to the United States, Australian immigration, Immigration to the United Kingdom, Immigration to Canada, Illegal immigration to Pakistan, Illegal immigrants in Malaysia, Immigration to Chile, Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Many countries have had or currently have laws restricting immigration for economic or nationalistic political reasons. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 concerning counter-terrorism, enacted in October 2001, requested of UN member states to restrict immigration laws. Whether a person is permitted to stay in a country legally may be decided by quotas or point systems or may be based on considerations such as family ties (marriage, elderly mother, etc.). Exceptions relative to political refugees or to sick people are also common. Immigrants who do not participate in these legal proceedings or who are denied permission under them and still enter or stay in the country are unauthorized immigrants, as well as people born on national territory (henceforth not "immigrants") but who have not obtained nationality of their birthplace and have no legal title of residency.

Most countries have laws requiring workers to have proper documentation, often intended to prevent or minimize the employment of unauthorized immigrants. However the penalties against employers are often small and the acceptable identification requirements vague and ill-defined as well as being seldom checked or enforced, making it easy for employers to hire unauthorized labor. Unauthorized immigrants are especially popular with many employers because they can pay less than the legal minimum wage or have unsafe working conditions, secure in the knowledge that few unauthorized workers will report the abuse to the authorities. Often the minimum wages in one country can be several times the prevailing wage in the unauthorized immigrant's country, making even these jobs attractive to the unauthorized worker.

In response to the outcry following popular knowledge of the Holocaust, the newly-established United Nations held an international conference on refugees, where it was decided that refugees (legally defined to be people who are persecuted in their original country and then enter another country seeking safety) should be exempted from immigration laws. It is, however, up to the countries involved to decide if a particular immigrant is a refugee or not, and hence whether they are subject to the immigration controls.

The right to freedom of movement of an individual within national borders is often contained within the constitution or in a country's human rights legislation. Some argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right and that nationalism and immigration policies of state governments violate this human right that those same governments recognize within their own borders. According to the article 13 on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental human rights are violated when citizens are forbidden to leave their country. However, immigrants are not assured the right to enter a country, that right is given at the host country's discretion.

Since unauthorized immigrants without proper legal status have no valid identification documents such as identity cards, they may have reduced or no access to public health systems, proper housing, education and banks. This lack of access may result in the creation or expansion of illegal underground forgery to provide this documentation.

When the authorities are overwhelmed in their efforts to stop "illegal" immigration, they have historically provided amnesty. Amnesties waive the "subject to deportation" clause associated with illegal aliens.