Book Description
Mass migration makes politicians nervous. Governments want to show their electorates that they have immigration under control. But increased human mobility and the complexity of managing this flow of people has made total control impossible. And attempts to tighten control of migration could undermine the very thing Europeans hold dear an open society.
This book sets out an alternative approach to mass migration, which replaces the illusion of control fostered by passports and border checkpoints with the concept of flow management. This innovative approach recongises that we will have to harness the positive effects of people movement, while reassuring the genuine fears felt by many in receiving countries.
The proposed model is based on the creation of International Transit Centres, offering basic shelter and services to migrants. These centres would offer an alternative to the crooked claims of people trafficking gangs, or the prison-like conditions of existing asylum centres.
Most important of all, they would treat all migrants equally and remove to the incentive for people to make false asylum claims.
Perhaps the most radical suggestion is the proposal for a New European Commonwealth, to encourage peaceful interdependence across an enlarged European region and the former colonies of its member nations.