ICMC Statement Calls for Compact on Migration That “Goes in the Right—and Rights—Direction”
In the process leading up to the Global Compact on Migration, to be agreed upon by states late next year, the International Catholic Migration Commission emphasized that “millions depend on a Compact that goes in the right direction.”
“The right direction is also the rights direction—fully—for the sake of migrants of all kinds, their families and all of society.” This was a key message in an ICMC’s statement delivered by ICMC Policy Officer Mantalin Kyrou at the UN Migration Agency (IOM) Council Meeting held in Geneva from 28 November–1 December.
On regularization, ICMC urged for expansion of “programs that [already] exist.” It called on states to “regularize migrants and refugees whose lives, family unity or recovery from human trafficking depend on it.” Regularization of migrants also allows “filling jobs with workers in countries that structurally need them.”
On return, ICMC proposed that the Global Compact should “include practical readmission and reintegration [mechanisms], and [consider] experience and data on returnees re-migrating.”
In conclusion, the ICMC statement points out that “governance must always be people-centered and rights-based [and] diligently ordered to the common good of all in society.”
