Topic: Rights of Immigrants
Country: China
Delegate Name: Keenan Smith
School: Flint Southwestern Classical Academy
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All China position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
Ever since there have been humans, there have been migrants. People, by nature, wish to move about and see the world around them. But within our globalized world, migration has become an issue. While it is important that we, as a committee, try to ensure the right of people to migrate to and from wherever they wish, the People’s Republic of China finds that doing so must be done through the legal means set up by both the nation of departure and the nation of destination. Through such legal processes, we become able to root out those who states may find dangerous or harmful to the integrity of their government.
A nation has the right to say who is guilty of a crime and who is not, correct? Then a nation should have the right to say that certain people are guilty of being fit or unfit to either enter or leave said nation. This is very similar to the idea of people being criminals; I have all the same rights as you, but when I infringe on your rights, I lose mine. In terms of migration, governments come across people who may be considered dangerous to that government’s ability to govern. Therefore, in the protection of their right to govern, a government must be able to allow or bar certain people’s entry or exit from their nation. These decisions must be left up to the state’s government to make, and should only occur if an individual is deemed to pose a threat to that government by that government. Many resolutions which have been passed on this issue are supported by the People’s Republic of China (i.e. Commission on Human Rights resolution 1999/44), including Security Council Resolution 1373 and its aims towards immigration law.
This committee must take time in its addressing of this issue, due to the wide range of policies that member-states have on immigration. For the People’s Republic of China to be in support of a resolution, there must be a concrete agreement that every nation has the right to allow or refuse persons who are deemed unfit to live in their nation, in the name of national sovereignty. Our committee must also realize that immigration through any means other than what is prescribed by the government is illegal, and those who do so are subject to the legal systems of the country which they have entered illegally. But people who have gone through the proper legal means of entering a nation should be allowed to reside within their nation of destination with the same rights as people born there.
