UN official’s views on immigration are irresponsible argues ROSS CLARKE

IF the UN was a country rather than a non-governmental organisation it is not hard to imagine what kind of state it would be.

UN Human rights chief Francois Crepeau GETTY

UN human rights rapporteur Francois Crepeau

It would be even more broke than Greece, while you wouldn’t be able to move for long trails of migrants queueing up at its benefits offices.

I say this because of yesterday’s remarks by francois Crepeau, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights, who would presumably be foreign minister in this fictitious UNland.

Illegal immigrants, he demanded, “should be able to access health care, education, local police, social services, public housing, health and safety inspectors and labour inspectors without risking being reported to immigration enforcement.”

Except he didn’t call them illegal immigrants. In UN-speak they are henceforth to be known as “irregular migrants”. “Irregular migrants are not criminals and should not be treated as such,” he sniffed.

Monsieur Crepeau’s remarks are fatuous. I can’t think of a single western country which does treat illegal immigrants as if they were common criminals.

Whether they have crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas or sailed from North Africa to Italy they are not generally locked in jail but are driven or flown whence they came and deposited there. And even that only tends to happen after they have had a fair chance to claim asylum.

THERE is every reason why countries need to be able to control migra- tion and eject those who arrive without permission. Any country which obeyed M. Crepeau’s demands would very rapidly find itself overwhelmed.

Perhaps he would like to explain how a country like Britain, with 60 million people, could possibly cope if several times that number of people suddenly turned up to avail themselves of welfare courtesy of British taxpayers.

Illegal immigrants in CalaisGETTY

Illegal immigrants arrive at Calais in attempt to get into Britain

Wealthy countries can only prevent such chaos by managing migration

It would be wonderful if the world were to reach a stage of development where national borders could be broken down as M. Crepeau proposes.

But it is quite clear we are not even nearly there yet, if we ever will be. So long as there are large differences in wealth across the world, people in poorer countries will have a strong incen- tive to emulate Dick Whittington and travel to richer ones.

Yet if they tried to do so the result would be counter-pro-ductive. Theoretically, most of the population of India – which measures 1.25 billion – could better itself by travelling to Britain and signing on the dole.

But if even a small fraction of them arrived the dole money would quickly dry up, social housing would be bursting and hospitals would be unable to cope with the numbers.

Wealthy countries can only prevent such chaos by managing migration. This they do in two ways: by erecting physical barriers to keep people out, and by ring-fencing their public services for the benefit of their own citizens.

Neither, admittedly, can be achieved without causing hardship. It is hard to watch ship-loads of Africans turned back by Italian coastguards without feeling pity.

But both are essential. The days when a country like the US could appeal for the rest of the world to send them their “huddled masses” are well and truly over.

That was fine when America was a rapidly-growing country full of unexploited natural resources, and when no-one complained if migrants spent a few years living in a state of poverty which nowadays wouldleave UN inspectors aghast.

But it doesn’t work in an advanced industrialised nation with a welfare state, and when international travel is so much easier than it used to be. Nowadays, the huddled masses don’t get beyond the arrivals lounge of JfK airport without a visa.

Crepeau’s high-minded- ness is all very well when delivered from the ivory tower of the UN. But no-one who holds government office would dare utter anything as irresponsible. If they did, the first plane-load of global Dick Whittingtons would start arrive on the country’s doorstep hours later.

It is a shame that a senior officer of the UN should try to hector rich countries on immigration, because of course the UN has a very useful role to play in managing migration.

Everyone accepts the need to help refugees from countries torn by warfare or natural disaster. It is unthinkable that the developed world would turn its back, for example, on those people flooding out of Syria as a result of the civil war.

That is why the UK has donated £700million to help three million Syrians who have fled to neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

But streams of refugees are best-managed close to their source. It is hardly in the longerterm interests of Syria that its population be dispersed around the world.

One day, the Syrian crisis will be over and the country will need its population to help rebuild itself. It won’t help if most Syrians are by then settled in communities from San francisco to Sydney.

That said, the UK could and should offer temporary homes to Syrian refugees, particularly the more vulnerable ones. Since the Syrian crisis began in 2011 the UK has accepted 3,500 Syrian asylum-seekers but has only take 90 refugees directly from the camps.

But what the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights has proposed – abolishing the concept of an illegal migrant and expecting rich countries to treat everyone, everywhere in exactly the same way as its own citizens – is irresponsible.

It should be the job of the UN to ensure the welfare of people displaced from national emergencies, not to promote some fanciful and idealist vision of a world without borders.

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