Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

Resistance 147
• The arguments which separate rights of survival from rights of movement are
indefensible. The history of peoples, in France and elsewhere, is rich in migrations.
The reasons for these movements may be wars, famines, persecutions, unemployment.
Nothing can stop peoples and individuals seeking places to settle in order
to survive. Today, the right to the free movement of peoples is profoundly linked
to the right to survival.
The Commission Immigration du Réseau No Pasaran wrote that the closing
of frontiers and the hardening of conditions for migrants under Schengen:
has done nothing other than feed xenophobic and racist fantasies, while plunging
thousands of people into clandestinity, a real enslavable workforce delivered to the
mercy of employers. These policies of closing frontiers have never been able to prevent
the rise of unemployment and go hand in hand with the policy of labour deregulation:
insecurity, exclusion, poverty.
To complement the closing of frontiers, some people argue for a policy of
immigration quotas. But such a policy would not stop individuals from travelling if
they need to or want to. There will always be people who will die trying to cross the
frontiers of Fortress Europe, as is happening at Gibraltar. Worse, a policy of quotas
would mean that states determined the number of immigrants authorised to enter
Europe in relation to their own economic needs. If this is not a new form of apartheid,
of exploitation and domination of the countries of the South ... let someone tell us
what it is. ...
We are pleased that all the organisations which have taken part in the European
demonstration of 27 March and are here in this meeting [a rally the day following
the demonstration] have expressed their support for freedom of movement and
settlement. A great step has been taken. Now is the time to make this freedom real.
The leaflet also called for the liberation of all detainees and for a demonstration
at the Vincennes detention centre, demanding the freedom of all the
sans-papiers detained there, to be supported by ‘all the signatories of the call
for 27 March’, including Madame Voynet of the Greens and Monsieur
Gayssot of the Communist Party.
The sans-papiers movement is gaining ground in other countries in Europe,
including Belgium and Italy. The Belgian organisation Frontières Ouvertes
(Open Frontiers) distributed a leaflet at the European march which
demanded the regularisation of all sans-papiers, the closing of detention
centres and the ending of deportations, and the right of all people living in
Belgium to full social, medical and employment rights, and said in part:
For ten years Frontières Ouvertes has been denouncing the implementation of more
and more anti-democratic measures against refugees and sans-papiers. This fascisisation
of the state is the consequence of the closing of frontiers which we are struggling
against. This closing can only be effected by reinforcing the police, debasing rights
and militarising certain frontier zones. It has the effect of meeting the demands of
fascist parties and encouraging racism.
Migration has taken place since the dawn of humanity. From its origins, capitalism
itself has in addition forced workers to move around the world. As long as this unjust
system of wealth distribution subsists, forced movements of populations will take
place. No closing of frontiers, however radical, will prevent migrations, it only has