Topic: Rights of Immigrants
Country: Congo
Delegate Name: Stefan Wanczyk
School: Ann Arbor Community High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Congo position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
It would seem at first that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a top choice for immigration, further suggested by the statistic that 0.9% of its population are immigrants and its 59th place rank in immigrant population of UN countries. However due to conflicts in the surrounding regions many displaced refugees have headed into Congo. In addition to those seeking asylum, Congo is home to many migrant workers brought to the country by its numerous mining operations.
It is the position of the Congo that the state should have the freedom to impose any restrictions needed on immigration in order to protect its citizens. It is equally important to be able to provide the opportunity for immigrants to enter the country and gain citizenship legally. It is also the position of Congo that providing aid to asylum seekers and allowing people to legally emigrate is an important right for all people. As well as accepting immigrants into a country it is the responsibility of the state to treat these individuals equally; the state should not differentiate between citizens and permanent residents in order to determine their treatment. Despite this, it is fully within the country’s rights to protect its citizens in a case such as limited work opportunities; if a country were to have a largely unemployed workforce, imposing restrictions on migrant workers would be necessary. This is accomplished based on the demand for foreign workers as opposed to discriminating against an immigrant population of a country, which is an important distinction to make.
Inevitably it will become necessary to differentiate between different classes of immigrants in order to keep track of the population and the prevalence of certain groups within that population in order to provide adequate public service to those groups. This could also mean a quick approval of asylum seekers from a nearby conflict that has been government mandated to quickly assist those people. Determining priority status for certain groups could be used to aid those with circumstances that require a more time sensitive approach than say someone applying for a work visa. For a system like this to work it is also important to assign enough resources to managing the demand for immigration without discriminating against certain groups of immigrants. It is the Democratic republic of Congo’s hope that the UN steps up to ensure that the rights of immigrants and regulations that allow immigration are implemented in all member states.
