A RADICAL SOLUTION FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROBLEM

Introduction
The problem of immigration is a global phenomenon that constantly growing. States structure of demography, cultural and economical situations and politics are directly affected from the impact of immigration. Also distant countries cultures are composed with the effect of immigration. Many countries are trying to cope with that transformation caused by immigration. Especially in the last two decades, immigration has occurs as one of the most prominent and important issues in the policies of Western countries. In the Seville summit of EU in 2002 Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Anzar claimed that reduction of illegal immigration was the most important question in European politics at the moment. States however mostly on the idea of controlling illegal immigration especially with strict border controls can be an answer to the problem of illegal immigration. Many measurements can be produced however the classical solution that states are implementing for years is control of borders. So Is illegal immigration control the answer to illegal immigration? Border controls seem as one of the major controls of the problem but it could not be an answer to the problem of illegal immigration throughout history. The problem can be solved only by controlling the immigration. The reasons of immigration and illegal immigration are not different. As Eytan Meyers claimed in his book International Immigration Policy, Immigration policy is the crucial element determining immigration patterns. To understand this phenomenon, first we should examine the concept of illegal immigration.

Descriptions of the Concept of Illegal Immigration and Migrant Smuggling

Generally it is difficult to make a clear definition to the concept of illegal immigration because it changes according to the economic status, geographical locations, legal regulations and administrative practices. The description that takes place in the protocol which is an addition of Transboundary United Nations Convention provided a common understanding that has been accepted in all over the world. That protocol is against migrant smuggling through sea route, land route and air route. According to this description illegal immigration is entrance to a country with illegal ways by abandoning the country where lived legally. Also after entering to the country through legal ways, not leaving from that country when the permitted period finished is defined as illegal immigration. With this way people work or leave in the country without any legal permission. Migrant smuggling: it is a crime that providing entry of a person who is not resident or national with illegal ways to get financial or other material benefits. It cannot be said that illegal immigration always occurs by migrant smugglings. People sometimes behave with personal causes and methods. Therefore; illegal immigration does not only mean frontier infringement, it shows difference according to its illegal situations. These can be classified like follows; a) Entrance or exit from the borders of country with illegal ways. b) Entrance or exit with false or falsified travel documents. c) Residence without permission after the period of visa or visa exemption finished though entrance with legal ways.

The Causes of Illegal Immigration

Especially in the last period, with the lots of change in the balances of the world, the economic troubles, chronicle poverty, deprivation of opportunity, and in addition to this oppressive and authoritarian regimes that completely ignore the human rights and freedoms, civil wars, general tendencies of violence and mistrust are some of the reasons that enforce people to abandon their countries. On the other hand, the social and economic characteristics of target country are important cause of popularity of illegal immigration. In the definition of illegal immigration the pull and push factors and their interactions are mentioned.

The push factors: a) Rapid population growth in the world; when the population exceeds the carrying capacity results in overpopulation and overpopulation create problems like poverty, crisis of water and many kinds of pollution. In 1900 the population of the world was about 1.6 billion and the population today is about 6.7 billion. The population growth rate is about 1.14% according to United Nations sources. It makes 75 million population per year and 205 thousand every day. And also it was predicted that the growth will continue in the future period and this will be especially seen in the less developed regions. b) Poverty and unemployment; increase in poverty and unemployment especially with the cause of economic crisis may lead to illegal immigration. People always desire better economic situations and when they think this will not be realized in the situations of their country they start to search the way of getting better economic conditions like in developed countries.

c) Wars; especially with the fear of civil war people started to turn their ways to other countries. Because in the period of war there is dangers of persecution (religion and otherwise), abuse, bullying, oppression and genocide. However there is a situation of people who are illegal immigrants can gain asylum seeker status if they escaped from a war. Also if the state they went recognizes them they can gain a legal status. d) The increasing expectations of peoples in less developed countries; with the developed opportunities of transportation and communication people can easily have knowledge about the situation of developed countries and this make them to seek the way of gaining the same status with other peoples in developed countries.

The pull factors: a) The increasing intention to produce policies for refugees and asylum seekers with the concern of human right violations and more active role of international aid organizations. b) Structural demand in developed states; the market concern in developed countries cause the desire of cheap or unskilled labor to maximize their profit or to gave them undesirable jobs. And for these jobs illegal immigrants are the most appropriate ones. c) Ineffective fight against illegal immigration and inadequate or unexecuted laws of migrant smuggling.

As it was understood from the causes of illegal immigration, this situation will not be able to be stopped if structural measurements are not taken. The situation is that, people would like to

emigrate to developed and industrialized countries due to political and economic reasons and there is limited opportunities to realize this demand, therefore they appeal the ways of illegal immigration. Therefore, the effective measure to determine the scope of global illegal immigration is the policy of immigration control. As it was indicated in the book Aristide R. Zolberg claimed: All the countries to which people would like to go restrict entry. This means that, in the final analysis, it is the policies of potential receivers which determine whether movement can take place, and of what kind. Recently policies of members of UN are on the purpose of restricting immigration. 193 states between the UN members are trying to implement effective policies to prevent illegal immigration. If illegal immigration is prohibited we cannot say that illegal immigration can only be prevented by controlling it. The important thing on that issue is that, what policies should be implemented and what instruments would be appropriate? At that point we come across with many precautions that can be taken.

Solutions to Prevent Illegal Immigration

Border Controls:
It is the first solution that comes into mind when we discuss about the problem of immigration. However, it is a partial solution. Hindering illegal entry could be the easiest answer to the problem. You can built barriers, buildings, restrict controls, or watch the comings. However, it seems impossible to built barriers to all meters of border. For instance United States is one of the countries that suffer from the illegal immigration especially from the Mexico. However with all economic and political opportunities it can only constructed barriers partially between the US and Mexico to reduce flowing migrants. Restriction of controls implemented in all the times of history however there is not only way entering from border illegally so the controls will be inadequate at one point. It can easily be understood from the fact that the problem only be

reduced at sometimes in history but we always see the problem even in the countries that have the most stringent rules. Moreover, it is very clear that you cannot always watch all the parts of barriers or all comings. That will be more detrimental for the economy of the country from the harms of illegal immigrants.

Legislative Initiatives:
The processes of legislation against illegal immigration can be seen as a way to prevent illegal aliens after the way of controlling borders. If an asylum or refugee case is realized governments mostly apply the legislative initiatives. The decisions that were taken in the parliament can be affective in one way to deter illegal immigrants. The parliament or the organs of the government can determine rules that will be implemented in some cases and they can identify the numbers of immigrants who will be allowed to enter to the country. However, most of the rules and laws are determined for specific cases and they are in sufficient to prevent the international immigration in most of the times. The sanctions are usually translated to pecuniary punishment or imprisonment that can turn into money. We cannot see a special law arrangement that regard illegal immigration as crime in many countries. For instance in Turkey, in 03.08.2002 an article was added in the Turkish Penal Code that arranges a law about the punishment of illegal immigrants. Until that time there was not a specific law for the prevention of illegal immigration. Therefore, legislative initiatives had never become a radical solution for the problem of illegal immigration.

Conversely, in some cases legislative initiatives became an instrument of increasing undocumented immigrants. For instance, governments decided for illegal aliens many times. An amnesty that forgive illegal migrants, forgives their illegal act and also ignore their using false

document while driving or working. For example in 1986 in United States, Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) caused an amnesty for all illegal immigrants who broke law and were working especially in the agricultural area illegally at least for four years. Therefore with this reform 2.8 million illegal migrants had gained the status of legal immigrants.

Stop giving to them jobs, services:

There can be a proposal like preventing to give jobs to illegal aliens. People claim the reason of illegal immigration is to find jobs, therefore, by not giving any jobs, they can prevent the realization of illegal aliens aims. If they cannot find jobs they will not continue to flow to the country. However, this is a solution that will be realized in individual cases. The people propose that solution mostly for feelings, because they get angry with the people who damage the order of the society. The solution will be realized only in limited cases because illegal immigrants work for less money and the cost of workers become lesser for employers. This will be more beneficial for people to maximize their profits and it will not be guaranteed that not providing jobs for illegal aliens. Therefore, it is not impossible to solve the problem radically. Moreover, many states started trying to stop providing public services and governmental benefits to prevent increasing number of illegal migrants who enter to the country. People think, if illegal aliens get benefit from the all public services, just like people using them legally, they will not be different from normal people and they will not suffer from their position of being illegal. By providing them services you will make their position guaranteed. Than possibly, more people will try to get benefit and more people will try to enter to the country. Also providing to them free services will be unfair for the people who obey the laws and rules. If a citizen pay taxes, benefiting from social services is the right of this person but an illegal alien does not pay any

taxes so he/she cannot benefit from the social services that ordinary people do. However, not providing services for illegal aliens will not be useful or practical. It mostly will be applied in very limited cases. Actually preventing services like health care will be harmful for the whole society rather than the economic or social damages of illegal immigration. For instance diseases can spread easily if illegal migrants are not benefited from the health services. Moreover, many people oppose this solution by claiming its being useless. For example, Sheldon Rampton, Research Director at the Center for Media & Democracy in United States claims that; "...I think it is both unethical and impractical to attempt to deny them [illegal aliens] access to public services. Some public services, such as bus transportation, subways, water utilities, or highways, are so widely used that denying service to illegal aliens would simply be impractical for cost reasons. Denying access to other public services hurts the entire community. If an illegal alien is raped or robbed, I want that person to have access to police services because otherwise the person who committed that crime is less likely to be captured, which makes everyone -- legal and illegal alike -- less safe. Likewise, denying access to health care increases the risk of disease spreading to the entire community.

Deporting illegal aliens:

If they are claimed as illegal, deporting them can be thought as one of the solution to prevent the crime. We can say if they are deported there will no problem then. However the problem is on the action of deporting. The biggest question is here is how to find them. If a police officer saw them with illegal documents they can be deported however to make this solution more effective any illegal immigrants should not be given driving licences, marriage licences or any identification cards therefore, they can be found easier but this process is problematic also. For

instance their some right of social services cannot be prevented as health care. Moreover, for the realization of this issue the birthright citizenships must be prevented but this is also a big problem because the birthright citizenship of child of legal migrants and tourists need to be prevented for realization of this process and this will not be totally legal then. Also illegal immigrants can prevent their deporting easily. The most popular way of this arranged marriages. If an illegal migrant marries with a legal citizen there is no way to deport him./her. Therefore, the number of legal immigrants can be decreased at some point but this will not be an effective way to prevent illegal immigration.

Intergovernmental cooperation:
The changes of the reasons, organization forms and spatial dimensions of illegal immigration led to becoming internationalized of the problem. The more active policies have become the target of the countries. For instance Budapest Group is one the first formations that was formed to prevent illegal immigration. This organization meets regularly and makes field works. The most important mission of this group is to take suggestions to prevent illegal immigration. Generalization of the regulations to prevent migrant smuggling, provide a harmony of the visa regimes, policies to accept again, information exchange, assistance for Middle East and Eastern Europe countries are some of the objectives of the group. Regarding to illegal immigration United Nations concentrates on studies which have force of sanction to reach all states. For this purpose UN Organized Border Crossed Crime Convention and its Additional Protocols were accepted. International Organization for Migration (IOM), is another organization dealing with the illegal immigration problem. Studies of organization are mostly related with migrants and refugees, and activities are to regulate migration initiatives, to protect rights of immigrants and to provide social opportunities, immigration status to them and to provide recycling programs.

Allow illegal aliens to become legal residents:

It seems a sort of solution to give illegal migrants the status of legality, even citizenship. Illegal migrations damage the country that they went because they do not pay taxes and this creates a problem in the economical status of the country. Moreover, high crime rates also can be related with the population of illegal aliens because there is no any registration of these people in the country. Therefore, if they become legal residents the problem of tax and crime can be decreased. However this solution is not popular in any country because the people in country mostly get angry with this solution. Firstly legal immigrants feel angry because they claim that they followed all procedures and obey the all rules and laws to become a legal immigrant in that country. Even they can wait for slow procedures of bureaucracy for years however, if a person comes easily in illegal ways the legal residents will feel cheated and will think this is unfair. Moreover the citizens of the country can feel anxious because they think illegal immigrants must be punished and if they given citizenship they will be rewarded. The situation will be totally opposite one.

Moreover, all people and policies are not opposed to illegal immigration. Many people claim all people have the right of life, being happy and liberty. Therefore they say if a person wants to live in better conditions you cannot stop him. If we are talking about the liberal world people must be liberal as well. If the state does not give them the right to live wherever they want to live, they naturally approve the illegal ways innately. Also they are claiming; if states cannot give them the good living conditions, they should not prevent their search of a better life. It is the one of the basic right of the human being. According to them, if a state strongly opposes the illegal immigration by claiming they damage the order of the country, they firstly should prevent the conditions that they cause the initiatives of illegal immigration. People do attempt to

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move illegally because they really need to getaway from the conditions that they live. If a state wants to prevent this problem, it should reduce the extreme desire of immigration and should take the responsibilities of all these people, if it is not allowing them to cross its borders.

I indicated many solutions for illegal immigration that are been tried to stop the problem of illegal immigration. However any of them has a radical solution even there are many opposing ideas to them. The solutions are not rational. There is a stoppage point in all of them. The best solution is seems as legal initiatives to overcome the problem but even this solution has many conditions that are not radical or not applicable. It is quite open that one of these solutions will not be beneficial when it is applied singly. It maybe considered that, if many of these solutions applied together carefully it can work however, If a state tries to implement all together it will give damages to the country more than illegal immigrants give. Moreover, this problem is not the problem of one country or it is not related with one region. It is the problem that has become internationalized. Even in recent days it has became a global problem which is one of the primary problems to be solved in the international arena. However for that reason the solution is not simple and immediately applicable because there in not an only one type illegal immigration. Simply while developed countries are regarding illegal immigration problem as security threats or damages to the market economy, the less developed ones concerns about the uncontrolled migration or unauthorized system within the state. Also the reasons of immigration or forms of the movements differ from one country to another. For instance immigrations from Turkey or from Balkans to Europe are mostly for economic reasons. However people who migrant from Somali to any European country are escaping from war and therefore all migrants cannot be defined under the same reasons and the same policy cannot be implement to them to

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block coming to the country. We can specify the reasons of the failure of existing controls of illegal immigration shortly in a few topics.

Failure of Existing Controls of Illegal Immigration

First of all, law and order measures are mostly ineffective if they are implemented alone in all over the world. These enforcements are mostly unsuccessful even if they are supported by public investments. Even militarization of borders was not successful in U.S policies of preventing illegal migration. The proponents of these implementations were right in many cases. Although there are many investments and measures against the illegal immigration, the population of illegal immigrants increases about 500.000 persons in each year. Secondly, the illegal immigration is related with sending, receiving and transit countries at the same time and the lack of any policy that tie the all responsible countries together the problem becomes e self-feeding problem and increases gradually. These dynamics that affect the increase of illegal immigration are both push and pull factors. Therefore the solutions should involve the initiatives in all countries that are related with the problem. For instance if people migrate illegally to Europe from Middle East countries over Turkey the illegal immigration controls which were implemented in Europe will not give the answer. Even if they implement strict policies it will not solve the problem radically. Clear and effective policies in all countries where the problem rises, develops and settles will be effective to control illegal immigration. Actually these policies must stand on the implementations to reduce the immigration because the main reason is the extreme demand of immigration and if we say the problem of illegal immigration will only be solved by controlling the reasons our target must be controlling immigration. Firstly, the reasons should be reduced.

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Third, all relations between states, economic, social or cultural, give the consequence of migration naturally. With the increasing relations between states the demand of migration has increased. If a state does not isolate itself from the all world the consequence of migration is inevitable and if a state ignores the importance of immigration and continue to follow old migration policies without implementing new policies that will control the problem of immigration this policy lead people to use ways to migrate and stay illegally. Globalization is one of the major trigger factors of illegal immigration. If a state benefits from the all global institutions working for reducing the causes of migration with forces of globalization will be able to give more beneficial solutions than implementing controlling policies against illegal immigration. Fourth, people apply these illegal ways when they become intolerant to the existing circumstances in their lives. Therefore they venture all the conditions before they embark their illegal way and they will not regard how strong the defense systems or initiatives of the receiving countries. Moreover many of them had been tried or tested many defense initiatives of many countries and nevertheless, they continue their purpose even by risking their own lives. They pay money with excessive amounts, break asylum systems, try all available ways and use all available means to reach their goals. For this reason the solutions such as border controls and legislative initiatives will not stop them and solutions such as stopping giving to them jobs or services will be meaningless because after receiving so much risk they will set off the ways of underground economy and you cannot deport them easily. If they enter to the country despite all precautions against them, they must have accounted the ways that they will not be caught.

One of the best policy implementations against illegal immigration are the studies which are made within the European Union. EU has proposed to support source and transit countries to

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prevent human trafficking and illegal immigration. In addition as the European Border Guard Unit was established, the member countries of EU accepted the importance of information sharing. Also they established units to control immigration, such as European Monitoring Center for Migration, Migration Service Units and Europol. The fact that the EU countries are targets of the phenomenon of migration, increase of migration in each year and expectancy of more increase shows that they will face with more problems of illegal immigration. That is why European Union pays much more attention to migration problem. They do not want the EU is adversely affected from this process. Firstly, in 1992 they established Migration and Border Crossing Information, Discussion and Exchange Center. This center of information exchange in the fight against illegal migration acts as a tool for exchange of information regularly and permanently, and collects information about illegal migration flow methods, real and fake documents methods, migrants whose asylum applications were rejected or deported and about the responsibility of the carrier. Also the jurisdiction of Europol rearranges to cover the fight against human trafficking.

CONCLUSION: A RADICAL APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRARTION It is very clear that, with globalization of world, changing boundaries and population fluctuations will be resulted in the intensification of migration request. Accordingly, this will cause the increasing amount of illegal immigration. It seems like this, protection of existing social order and providing internal security of developed countries will go parallel with their success of struggle with illegal immigration, in other words controlling migration. The radical

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changes that are formed in international arena increase illegal immigration, and unless the source countries problems such as national and international political and economical uncertainties, conflicts of interest between countries, poverty, violation of human rights increasing population, civil wars, epidemics, huge damage of natural disasters are not been solved, the problem will continue incrementally. Checking borders is seen as one of the important tools of resolving the problem but it cannot provide any permanent solution. Rather than this focusing on the factors that cause illegal immigration, push and pull factors, will be effective. As I examined before, the border controls, legislative initiatives, not providing services, deporting them or accepting them as legal residents are not giving the effective solutions. When we came to the intergovernmental cooperation, because of the self interest of countries, the source state can easily claim that, I am not responsible for well the being of another country if you only focus on to controls of illegal immigration. However if an integrated solution is provided for the well being of all countries, which are sending, receiving and transit, countries will be most probably ready to implement policies. The suggestion of searching solution at the source of the problem will be the most affective one. By providing solutions based on the causes, the economic losses and social integration problems will be reversed. (4398 words)

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Gnll M. (2006). D G. Periodical of Faculty of Education, Pamukkale University. Volume:1. Retrieved 2009-12-21, from: http://egitimdergi.pamukkale.edu.tr/makale/say %C4%B11/di%C5%9E%20%20%20go%C3%87.pdf Illegal Immigration. Retrieved 2009-12-21, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration Illegal Immigration, Asylum and Border Control. (2004). EurActiv.com. Retrieved 2010-01-07, from: http://www.euractiv.com/en/justice/illegal-immigration-asylum-border-control/article117508# Immigration Reduction. Retrieved 2010-01-07, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_reduction Krl, ., (2009). Yasad G http://idc.sdu.edu.tr/tammetinler/goc/goc6.pdf Sorunu. Retrieved 2010-01-07, from:

Meyers, E. (2004). International Immigration Policy: A Theoretical and Comparative Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. p.2-6 Should illegal aliens have access to social services such as health care and public transportation?. Illegal Immigration. ProCon.org. (2009). Retrieved 2009-12-21, from: http://immigration.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=000811 Papademetriou, D. G., (2005). The Global Struggle with Illegal Migration: No End in Sight. Migration Information Source. Retrieved 2010-01-06, from: http://www.migrationinformation.org/Usfocus/display.cfm?ID=336 Phil, B., (2008). Illegal Immigration. Retrieved 2009-12-15, from: http://www.philforhumanity.com/Illegal_Immigration.html Yasad G ve Gmen Kaakl. Emniyet Genel Mdrl. Retrieved 2009-12-15, from: http://www.egm.gov.tr/hizmet.yabancilar.goc.asp YILDIZ TEZCAN 1541119 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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