by Ravi Embar

Created on: October 13, 2008

A recent news article in the BBC reported that even as thousands of young West Africans try to make it into Europe illegally each year with many dying en route, the European Union is set to open its first immigration centre outside Europe, in Mali's capital, Bamako. According to the BBC, the EU hopes the new centre will help the citizens of Mali find legal work in Europe and cut down on illegal migration.

This amazing idea has all the hallmarks of a plan hatched and botched in the convoluted corridors of power of the EU and in the maze of hallways of a bungling bureaucracy.

In addition to the illegal and legal economic migrants, there is a rapidly mounting population of displaced persons and refugees around the world produced as a result of internecine conflicts and ongoing wars.

Some Western nations hope to deter illegal migration by constructing walls, barriers and buffer zones. The illegal migrants continue to enter under the radar despite the barriers in increasing numbers. The understaffed and overreaching immigration authorities are under greater pressure and seemingly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem.

An abundance of money, manpower and time is expended trying to contain existing conflicts from spreading further even as military contractors benefit from the increasing instability resulting in increasing numbers of displaced people and refugees. If a fraction of the money spent on the current conflicts is spent on assisting and developing the economies of African countries, the Western nations would not be confronted with the problem of illegal African immigrants.

The current policy among the movers and shakers in some Western countries concerning immigration, internal displacement and external refugees from various regions around the world, seems to resemble a three-dimensional game of checkers with human game pieces. Diverse groups of persons from many regions are being resettled in various Western countries based on the quotas set by the host countries. This results in illegal immigrants or refugees from one region being resettled in many different nations. The Western nations subsequently have to earmark funds for the orientation, accommodation and assimilation of the newcomers. Since most illegal immigrants and refugees are from developing countries, there is a certain degree of acculturation required in the assimilation process. This is more apparent in case the host society believes in the melting pot approach (the newcomers are expected to adopt the culture of the host country) as opposed to the mosaic approach (the newcomers are allowed to retain their cultural traditions).

Taking into account the total cost, time, effort and manpower expended in the resettlement process, it is definitely much more cost effective and less traumatic for the refugees or illegal immigrants to be resettled in safe havens within the countries of their origin. The total cost of resettling the migrants in their homelands is far less than the expenditure of setting up transitional camps for the migrants, transporting them across continents to new lands followed by all the other costs associated with resettlement. Assisting and retaining would be illegal immigrants in the countries of their origin will have a positive impact on the developing countries, avoid the unwanted stress of would be illegal immigrants, relieve the tension of immigration authorities and the Western countries will not ultimately have to experience the disruptive long-term consequences of ill-conceived band-aid approaches to a complex problem.

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