I believe immigration controls are inhuman and should be scrapped. So do many other human rights campaigners. I’ve even met prominent academics, heads of NGOs and MPs who also agree – but only in private and with the rider that the idea is so ‘far out on a limb’ that it might even be ‘dangerously counterproductive’ to discuss it publicly.
I’ve just read an article you co-authored about the panic that seized Canada on the arrival of a ship containing 490 unfortunate Tamil refugees earlier this year (‘Why we can’t turn away the Tamil ships’, Globe and Mail, 17 July 2010). My heart sank when, after putting the panic into calm perspective and exposing the wider irrationality of controls, you went on to reassure your readers that, ‘Canada can also discourage any non-genuine claimants by ensuring timely, fair decisions in their refugee claims, followed by the prompt return of failed claimants.’
