18 December - For an immediate end to the repressive border regime and the implementation of dignified and egalitarian migration policies
Collective action
We, organisations, collectives and networks committed to the rights of migrant persons and having taken part in the transnational meetings and mobilisations of the March to Brussels, publish this joint communiqué on the occasion of the International Migrants Day.
On 18 December, we will demonstrate again globally on International Migrants Day.
The latest developments are part of a global trend towards the hardening of migration control and sorting policies, whatever the cost. As we approach 18 December, we share this observation: the year has once again been marked by the restriction of rights, criminalisation, expulsions and daily violence against people on the move and maintained in illegality; by new deaths and disappearances at the borders, from Central America to the Balkans, via the Sahara and the Mediterranean. On 24 June last in Morocco, 37 people were killed in their attempt to cross the Melilla barrier: the highest death toll ever recorded at this land border. On 2 November, the memorandum of understanding between Italy and Libya to prevent migration in the Central Mediterranean was automatically renewed, and with it the system of interception of migrants, trafficking and torture documented for years. Meanwhile, the deployment of Frontex continues in the Balkans or in Africa, despite the questioning of the agency by OLAF and many organisations. The agency is also present along the North Sea coast, while a damning report points to the responsibilities of the French and British rescue services in the 24 November 2021 sinking in the Channel. The outpouring of solidarity with people fleeing the war in Ukraine, which could have raised hopes of a better reception for all, has proved to be selective, bearing clear witness to the political and economic opportunism and the racism that underlie the migration policies of the European Union and its member states.
So, from the local to the transnational level, solidarity is being organised and alliances are being strengthened between migrant groups, individuals and associations in solidarity, trade unions and local authorities. These struggles take many forms: assistance and resistance along the migration routes, mobilisations of people deprived of residence permits for their regularisation, campaigns against the colonial exploitation of resources and populations of the Global South, legal accompaniment against the criminalisation of migration and solidarity, advocacy against confinement and deportations... Solidarity is also organised to commemorate, alongside their relatives, the people who have disappeared on the routes by sea and land through "commemorActions". Finally, our movements are working to build alternatives and promote human rights based, dignified and sustainable reception policies. In response to the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, which only endorses a logic of rejection and denial of rights, many organisations call for a Global Pact of Solidarity.
Thus, on this 18 December, we denounce loud and clear the repressive policies obstinately put in place by many States, with the complicity of security and arms corporations and international agencies, in defiance of the most fundamental rights and tens of thousands of human lives. We demand an immediate end to the repressive border regime and the implementation of migration policies based on respect for human dignity and equal rights.
To view or join the list of signatory organisations, please click here.