Philosophical Reflections on Migration Policy

A sound migration policy needs to be grounded on principles. I shall try to propose a foundation of
migration policies on commonly accepted principles of the Western Civilization. These principles
may be derived from the jew/christian revelation or from the juridical and philosophical tradition of
the Greeks and the Romans. I shall not discuss the relative merits of these traditions. As a matter
of fact they converge on the affirmation of the unique dignity of the human person. St. Ireneus of
Lyon has written : Gloria Dei vivens homo (The glory of God is the life of man, Adversus
Haereses IV,20,7) and Seneca has left us the principle: Homo homini res sacra ( Man is sacred
to man, Epistle to Lucilius XCV, 33). The german Constitution begins with the words: Die
menschliche Würde ist unantastbar ( Human dignity is inviolable).
This is our starting point. We will not try to found it, although we could if need be. Here is the first
foundation of the whole tradition of human rights.

1.From this principle some consequences can be drawn. Men have a right to live. The right to live
does not encompass just the right not to be killed but also the right not to starve, the right to make
a living through one's own work. In other words: all men have a right to exploit the earth in order to
produce what is needed for their lives. In the language of theology we say that God has created
the earth and has given it to men, to all men so that all men may live. St. Thomas Aquinas has
explained that men have divided the earth among themselves, in order to better take care of it and
to make it fruitful. Private property is legitimate because it is the best way to take care of the earth.
Private property stands however under a social obligation. Some men will be diligent and make a
good use of their property and will become wealthy; other will be lazy and make a bad use of their
property and will lose it and become poor. There is however an absolute limit to this historical
process of redistribution of wealth. This limit is the life of man. No man must remain absolutely
without land that is without means of subsistence and without the possibility to work. In the
language of the Ancient Testament ( and to a large extent in the language of St. Thomas too) the
right to live is linked to the right to the land. In an industrialized and post/industrialized society the
earth is no more the unique or even the principal source of wealth. The property of the material and
immaterial means of production has become more important than the possession of the earth.
Today the possession of knowledge is the most important factor of production. The general
principle, however, remains valid. We shall not say that every human being has a right to a piece of
land but we shall maintain that every human being has the right to participate in the social
production and to earn his bread through his own work.
We derive this principle from the dignity of the human person. The same consequence can be
reached also moving from a different starting point. If some people will not be able to make a living
through their labor they are likely to struggle for their lives and to seize by force what they need in
order not to perish. If the main purpose of politics is to preserve peace, it is than the task of politics
to take care that nobody is driven into desperation. This means that full employment is a
necessary end of economic policies.

We have been moving, in this exposition, in the tension between two principles: the principle of the
universal destination and the principle of the private property of the goods of the earth. This tension
applies however also to another domain. When you say : "this land is my land" you may mean that
this is the land you possess in private property but you may mean also that this is the land where
you were born, your fatherland (the land of your fathers) . The earth has been appropriated not
only by individuals in private property but also by nations. Men possess the earth not just as
individuals but also as communities in which men are united with one another through the
multifarious bonds of language, blood, history, common interest and, first of all, culture. The public
equivalent of private property is sovereignty. Men possess the earth as individuals and as
communities. The individual needs the support of a community to protect his rights and to
guarantee the cooperation required to make his work fruitful.
The medievals had an aphorism that appropriately brings to evidence one essential feature of what
we have been saying: "a semetipso incipit bene ordinata caritas" ( well ordered charity begins from
oneself .This sentence is sometimes attributed to St.Augustine but I could not find it in his works.
Something similar can be found however in Enchiridion ad Laurentium 20,76)). Let us consider for
a while the meaning of this sentence. It implies that each one of us has to take care of himself and
to win his bread through the sweat of his brow, applying his labor to a piece of the earth or to a
social activity. This is the beginning but the principle has in itself an expansive force. Well ordered
charity begins with oneself but is not limited to oneself. It continues with one's spouse and children,
with one's parents and siblings, with one's neighbor... Well ordered charity extends to all of
mankind but in a certain order. What would you think of a woman who is so completely dedicated
to the welfare of children of some distant country that she does not take care of her own children?
Her charity would not be "well ordered". I am more intensely responsible for my children than for
the children of my sister, and for the children of my sisters than for the children of my cousins and
so on...

Now everything seems to be ordered in an appropriate way, but is it really?

My first born daughter ( I have four) has seven children. One day the two eldest asked her: " Mum,
we know this is not going to happen, but if you and daddy died what would happen of us? Who
would take care of us?". My daughter gulped for one moment and then replied:" Well, Grandfather
and Grandmother would take care of you". The children were reassured for a while but then came
back with another question: " Grandfather and Grandmother, you know, are rather old. What would
happen of us if they die?" . This time my daughter was less shocked and promptly replied: " Aunt
Francesca and uncle Luca would take care of you". Now the children were fully reassured and
said: " Well, aunt Francesca and uncle Luca are young and, in any case, we have two other aunts
who are even younger".
The responsibility for the other is elastic and flexible. Those who are more distant can become
more proximate and fall more intensely within the scope of our responsibility.
Jesus has given us the most fascinating formulation of this principle of responsibility. He answers
the question: "who is my neighbor?" . He tells us the story of a man who was journeying from
Jerusalem to Jericho. A band of mobsters ambushed him, cudgeled him, robbed him of his money
and of all his goods and left him naked und half dead in a ditch at a side of the road. No one of the
passers by stopped to succor him. Nobody recognized him as his neighbor. Only a samaritan did.
What does the parable of the Samaritan teach us? And what do we learn from my grandchildren?
Do Jesus and my grandchildren contradict the principle "a semetipso incipit bene ordinata charitas"
that seems to explain so clearly the augustinian doctrine of the "ordo amoris" ( the order of love)?
Really Jesus does not contradict St. Augustine. He does not contradict the principle according to
which I have to take care of my children and my sister of hers. He asks another question? What
happens to me if I happen to fall out of the chain of the well ordered love of which St.Augustine
speaks? Who is my neighbor if I have no neighbor? This is the question of my grandchildren: who
are my parents if I happen to lose my parents? In a first stage there is an order of parenthood that
provides the child with alternative parents. But what happens if all that order collapses? Who has
the duty to take care of a child who has no parents, no grandparents, no uncles or aunts, no
relatives in the world? The answer of Jesus is clear: you. The first one who passes by has the duty
to take care of the distressed who has fallen out of the established order of social solidarity. If he
has no neighbors than he is my neighbor. This is a necessary corollary of the "ordo amoris": all
men are responsible for one another. Under normal circumstances we exercise this responsibility
taking care first of those who are near to us and later of those who are far away and fall within the
responsibility of somebody else. If however one is left alone than he becomes my neighbor and my
general responsibility for any other human being becomes in his case actual: he becomes my
neighbor and is entrusted to my care.

We have tried to lay down some foundational principles for a judgment on migration phenomena.
Now we turn to politics.

2.We want to know if there is a general right to migrate and settle in a country different from one's
country of origin. At a first sight the answer seems to be no. There is a peculiar right of a man to
the country in which he was born, his native country, his fatherland. There is a bond between a
land and a culture that has inhabited that country and given to it its own form. Take the landscape
of this english shire: it seems to be only natural but as a matter of fact it is not. The countryside we
see has not been just created by God ( or, if you prefer, by natural forces and processes). It
received its present form through the labor of generations and generations of men. They have
dried the morasses, cut down the forests or preserved or newly planted them, taken the stones out
of the fields in order to make their cultivation possible. They have regulated the waters, built homes
using the raw materials they could find. In doing so they have invested their work in the land in
order to facilitate the life of their offspring. Horatius has keenly described this phenomenon:
"carpent tua poma nepotes" (your grandchildren will feast on the fruits of your work). A nation
grows if each generation leaves to the following a country better endowed with material and
immaterial capital than the country they had received from their ancestors. It is not only a matter of
economy. With the same act with which we make the land more fruitful we make the land more
beautiful (or more ugly), we give it the form of our culture. We create that cultural masterpiece that
is the English ( or Dutch or Italian) landscape... or we destroy it. Through human labor and history
a peculiar bond is forged between a nation and a land. This land belongs to this nation. The bond
between a nation and a land carries some similarities to the bond between a man and his property.
Property implies a right of exclusion. If we use the word sovereignty to express this bond between
the land and the nation we can say that a nation has a right to exclude others from its own territory.
There is no (unconditional) right to migrate in any land of our choice. As a consequence we say
that a nation has a right to forbid migration in its own territory.

We have established that a nation has the right to forbid migrations, to close its borders. We derive
this right from the fact that God ( or history) had divided the earth among different nations, so that
each nation can develop its independent culture and existence. Each nation has a right to control
its own territory in the same way in which a family has the right to control the physical space of its
home. Every man has a right to his native country and has not a right to the countries of others.
Now we want to know if this right is unconditional and it seems that it is not. There is one
fundamental exception to this right and this regards refugees. The principle of sovereignty is
limited by the right of refuge. Do you remember the parable of the samaritan? There was
nobody else who could succor that man left to die on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and the
Samaritan saw that he was in charge, that that man was entrusted to his responsibility.
Let us make another more political example. In a debate in the Italian Parliament a deputy of the
Northern Liga said: "all these migrants should be sent back home". I replied: "what shall we do if
they have no more a home we can send them back to? " . A refugee is exactly a man who has no
more a fatherland because he has been deprived of his native country. Take the example of the
jews in nazi Germany. If you sent them back to Germany you would deliver them in the hands of
their executioners. Therefore is seems that the right of exclusion is limited by the right of sanctuary.
It is the principle of the samaritan: if they have no father I am their father.

It seems that we must carefully distinguish between refugees and immigrants. Refugees have a
right to be accepted, immigrants do not.
Let concentrate first our attention on refugees. They have a right to be received. Who has the duty
to receive them? It seems that the first country that has the duty to receive refugees is the first
country to which they present themselves and submit their demand. As a rule this is a country that
lies close to the country of origin or has a border in common with it. In our time the refugees are
very often not just a small number of people, for instance representatives of a defeated
government, but large masses of men and women who are the object of an operation of ethnic or
religious cleansing. Whole populations are displaced, sought after their lives and compelled to flee.
This may easily become an important burden for their country of first arrival. It seems reasonable
to say that the responsibility for them cannot fall only on the countries of first asylum. On the other
hand these people have as a rule their own preferences on their country of final destination. They
have of course the right to demand to be accepted in the country of their preference but has this
country a right to refuse this demand? It seems that they do not have a right to decide where they
want to settle. We have a duty to help but we have a right to decide how and how we divide among
ourselves this responsibility. How shall we then divide the responsibility for them within the
international community? Here there are no clear apriorical rules. It seems to a large extent to be
a matter of prudence. Under circumstances it may seem reasonable to keep the refugees in the
first country of asylum in the immediate proximity of their country of origin. If there is a high level of
probability that they will be able to come back to their country of origin soon then it may be
reasonable to keep them in the immediate proximity of this country. The international community
should, in such cases, give financial support to the country of first asylum. So, for instance, it
seems reasonable to keep, in as far as possible, the Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and
Lebanon giving to these countries an adequate financial support and waiting for the end of war and
totalitarian rule in Syria.
This is not always the ideal solution. Take the case of the Palestinian refugees. They were kept in
refugee camps for several years, ill fed and ill sheltered, exposed to nationalist propaganda that
incited them to guerrilla and revenge. It would have been much better if they had been divided
among different countries, integrated in their societies, helped to make a new life in a new
fatherland. The choice between the two alternative models is a matter of prudence. In any case if
the refugees are kept for a long time in the country of first asylum the support of the international
community should not be limited just to a subsistence minimum. It should include the financing of
infrastructure and jobs. In the case in which the refugees are redistributed they should be
redistributed according to the capacity of integration of the different countries. In the European
Union we have an agreement for the redistribution of refugees that to measure the capacity of
integration takes into account the situation of the labor market, the demographic density, the
number of non native inhabitants and several other indexes.

Migrants who are not refugees have not a right to settle in a country of their choice. They have
however a right to ask to be admitted. In evaluating their demands several criteria should be
considered. One of them is their state of need. A migrant for economic reason is not a refugee. He
has a country of origin where he can live. He has a homeland. Sometimes however he lives in
conditions of abject poverty. His desire to move to another country can be strongly motivated and
must be seriously considered. There are also situations that came very near to that of a refugee.
Consider for instance those who are deprived of their homeland because of a natural catastrophe (
for example an earthquake or the desertification in some regions south of the Sahara). The state of
need of the would be migrants is surely a criterion that should be considered in the decisions on
their demands.
A second criterion is the situation of the labor market of the host country. In most western countries
we have very low birth rates and we need workers. The consent given to immigration is not only an
act of generosity but also a response to a need of our society and corresponds to our well
understood self interest. Of course the quantity of legal immigration allowed must have some limits
in order not to create situations of tension in the labor market. The poor in the wealthy countries
often resent immigration policies and protest against a violation of the principle "a semetipso
incipit bene ordinata caritas". They say that the immigrants receive a better treatment than
themselves or that they "rob their jobs" . These protests are often unjustified, sometimes they are
not. A prudent immigration policy should try not to offer pretexts to xenophobic campaigns.
A third criterion is the cultural compatibility. Different nations and different cultures do not stand in
an equal relation to one another. Geography, history and first of all culture and religion create
situations of greater similarity or difference among groups or families of cultures or nations.
Individuals coming from a culture that is more similar to ours will be more easily integrated. It is
reasonable to facilitate the immigration of people that can be more easily integrated. It is difficult to
deny that religion has a great role in determining the similarity or difference of culture. A good index
of the capacity of integration is the rate of crime. If a community of migrants have a low rate of
crime they are probably well integrated. The natives have also a right to preserve their culture and
to have an immigration that does not stand in a blatant contradiction to their values and mores.
A last criterium, that in one sense summarizes all others is the load bearing capacity of a nation. In
deciding on immigration policies a honest politician should always consider what is the limit that
must not be trespassed if we do not want to cause violent xenophobic reactions. We must invite
our people to be generous but we must also consider with realism the limits of the generosity of
which we are capable. If that limit is trespassed dangerous and counterproductive reactions can be
unleashed. We have moved now from migrations to the related topic of the multicultural society.
Before we move back to our main issue allow me to observe that the multicultural society is like
marriage. If you associate the right cultures in the right time and with the appropriate precautions it
may be similar to heaven; if you bring together the wrong cultures in the wrong time and in the
wrong way it may be similar to hell.
If we apply a generous but prudent migration policy we are likely to admit within our borders only a
fraction of the vast masses of people who are willing to leave their country and work abroad in
order to better their living conditions and create a more human future for their children. Shall we
decry all responsibility for the others? The principle "a semetipso incipit bene ordinata caritas" tells
us that we have a responsibility for all men on earth. It orders this responsibility but does not deny
it. If we are not morally obliged to receive within our borders all the poor of the earth we have
however a moral obligation to help them to make a living in their native countries. To support their
economic development is at the same time a moral obligation and an act of enlightened self
interest. The growth of their economies stimulates also our growth. The treatises of Punta del Este
and of Marrakech, at the beginning of the '90 of the past century, have started the process of
globalization of world economies through free trade. They have helped billions of people to exit
from poverty. The process should be continued and enhanced, especially in the countries of origin
of the migrations directed towards Europe.

In the first section of this paper we have exposed a philosophical principle, derived from the
philosophy of order of St.Augustine, that has led us in all our considerations on migrations: a
semetipso incipit bene ordinata caritas"
In the second section we have elaborated some political criteria, derived from the principle, to
regulate migrations. In the third section we want to test these criteria in the concrete case of
european migration policies.

3. Millions of people are moving towards Europe and demand admission within our borders. Some
of them arrive by a land route, some traverse the Mediterranean on old boats that can hardly hold
the see. Many arrive by airplane with a tourist visa and remain as illegal immigrants after the visa
has expired. What shall we do?
First of all we have a moral duty not to let people drown in the see. Than we have the right and
duty to identify them and to investigate who is a refugee and who is an illegal immigrant.
Here a problem arises. Do we have the right to forcibly identify those who do not want to be
identified because they are willing to move from the country of first asylum to a second country
where they are willing to settle? If they are identified in the country of first asylum and they move to
another country they can be sent back to the country of first asylum. In order to prevent this they
prefer not to be identified. It is also possible that they do not want to be identified because they
have committed crimes or because they are willing to enter into a criminal underground or simply
because they know they do not qualify as asylum seekers and do not want to be sent back to their
country of origin . It seems that the country of asylum has a right to pretend to identify all migrants
and to deny them a free access to its territory until they have been identified. The identification is
crucial and is the starting point of all immigration policies. The identification is crucial for the
protection of the immigrants themselves. Unidentified migrants can be more easily sold to criminal
organizations that will exploit their labor, induce them to prostitution or even assassinate them to
sell their organs. The identification is also crucial for the protection of our people because it allows
us to prevent the immigration of criminals and the expansion of crime. We need to identify migrants
also in order to prevent the formation of large masses of illegal immigrants. An illegal immigrant is
a human being who cannot rely on the protection of the law. He does not see in the policeman an
ally and a protector of his rights but an enemy and a threat. What can an illegal do if he becomes
the victim of an act of violence, if he is robbed, if his dear ones are offended? He can only seek
revenge through his own private exercise of violence or submit to the local mafia boss in order to
receive the protection of organized crime. The result is a spreading culture of illegality and
violence. It often happens that we need immigrants but are afraid to recognize it openly. Instead of
opening channels of legal migration we tolerate illegal immigration and expand in this way the
underworld of organized crime.
The identification is also the precondition for the processing of asylum demands and for the
distinction between refugees and illegal immigrants. Refugees should be integrated in our
societies, illegal immigrants sent back to the countries of origin.
The identification and expulsion of illegal immigrants is not an easy task, especially if the subjects
do not want to be identified. It requires the cooperation of the countries of origin of immigrants. This
cooperation needs to be encouraged and becomes much more effective if we offer two
counterparts. The first offer is that of channels of legal immigration. The other is the offer of
economic cooperation for development. We need, for instance, an agreement involving all
mediterranean countries to regulate legal migrations, cooperation for development, identification of
migrants and repatriation of illegal migrants. It is unrealistic to expect poor countries to cordially
cooperate for the repatriation of illegal migrants if they have no perspectives of economic
development and job creation for their people. We need a Neighborhood Policy that supports the
creation of an area of shared prosperity. This involves free trade agreements, the creation of a free
exchange area in the Maghreb and the building of an adequate infrastructure on the southern side
of the Mediterranean Sea together with interior reforms based on the rule of law. The main
obstacle is the isis caliphate in Libya and in Syria. It is important to observe that the very existence
of the caliphate is a consequence of the lack of a european policy in the Middle East. The "Arab
Spring" was at the same time a demand of freedom and a revolt for bread. If the pro western elites
that led for a while the uprisings could have offered immediate humanitarian relief and a
perspective of economic development they would likely have consolidated their leadership. We did
not provide them with any adequate support and they were easily overcome by fanatical anti
western forces. Now everything is more difficult. It is however apparent that no reasonable
immigration policy will be possible if there will not be in place a government that has the control of
the territory both in Libya and in Syria.
The crucial distinction between refugees and illegal immigrants must remain purely theoretical if
there is not a minimal respect of human rights in the countries of origin of the migrants. We cannot
allow all of them to settle among us but in order to send them back home we must help them to
build a home in which they can live. The material and cultural costs of such a neighborhood policy
will however be much more tolerable than those of an unrestricted immigration.

Immigration policy is only possible within the framework of a sensible foreign and economic
cooperation policy.

In conclusion: from the principle of a well ordered charity we derive three consequences:
we have a moral and juridical ( according to the international law) obligation to accept and integrate
the refugees,
we have a right to determine the number of economical immigrants on the basis of a reciprocal
convenience,
we have a moral obligation to support the economic development of the countries of origin. This is
also the only way to reduce the pressure of would be migrants on our borders.