“[The UN pact] is a document that raises issues and questions that many citizens have strong feelings about,” said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. “Therefore, we consider it right to put the debate in parliament and subject any final decision on the outcome of that debate, as Switzerland has done.”
The UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration outlines 23 objectives designed to facilitate safe and efficient migration while reducing human smuggling and trafficking.
The agreement comes at a time when roughly 3% of the world’s population is on the move.
As stated on the UN website, the agreement “forms a basis to improve governance and international understanding of migration, to address the challenges associated with migration today, and to strengthen the contribution of migrants and migration to sustainable development.”
Opponents say the pact essentially legalizes illegal immigration and threatens nations’ sovereignty.
Nearly 200 countries agreed on the document in July following more than a year of negotiations. The document will be formally adopted and signed later this month at a conference in Morocco.
The pact is not legally binding.
Nations that have decided to reject the agreement include the United States, Israel, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Australia.
Countries to abandon the agreement after participating in negotiations are feeling “buyer’s remorse,” said Louise Arbour, the UN envoy for international migration. “Some politicians, as it turned out, would say something like ‘migration is a bad thing,'” said Arbour. “This is completely ridiculous. Migration is a thing. It’s not a bad thing, not a good thing. It’s a thing.”
Author’s Note: The UN pact is a horrible idea, and those who adhere to it will watch as the arrival of migrants and refugees leads to the erosion of culture, safety, and economic progress.
Thankfully this is happening under Trump and not Obama, who probably would have signed it.
Editor’s Note: This seems so sinister to me. How can the U.N. advocate the distribution of potentially violent and destabilizing migrants onto countries that have managed to be stable and prosperous. Reports coming from Sweden should be enough of a lesson there. Unless of course the majority of the countries voting are poor and they wish to ensure that their own migrants can travel to seek a better life in more well managed nations.
We have yet to catch anyone staging a war solely for the purpose of distributing their citizens as refugees to other nations. But is it really out of the realm of possibility?