Sri Lanka has become increasingly a land for illegal immigrants where staggering numbers enter as visitors, and pass through immigration control desks where the officials become clueless whether this mass of visitors are still in the country violating immigration laws or not. Currently, Indians arriving in Sri Lanka, in connivance with some Indian companies, account for the highest number of tourist arrivals for cheap labour circumventing the local market. As per the Visa and Border Control Section of the Department of Immigration and Emigration, the latest influx of foreign workers arriving on tourist visas are Chinese, who get employed in the construction industry, thus creating a plenty of room for illegal immigration.
History
Early ancestors to modern humans were known as ‘Home Erectus’, who moved out of Africa across Europe, more than a million years ago. Seemingly because the worldwide assimilation of economic, financial, trade, and communication inhabitants of the world have expanded appropriately. This very factor has given rise to migration, which in turn has disturbed the perceptible bond of international populations leading to many challenges on social unity, as a consequence of which, having to share different cultures, religions, and beliefs in multi-cultural societies.
Immigration has been a political tool in every part of the world. Never has it become so prominent and ended up as a hot potato as in the US until Donald Trump became the President of America when he tried to abide by one of his promises during his intense political pomposity on the issue of immigration to the US.
Since assuming the hot seat at the Oval Office, Donald Trump became the first American President ever to receive a good measure of bouquets and brickbats than any other previous American President. First and foremost, Donald Trump made several changes in his Administration, which seemingly led to many resignations too. His critics said, “!” What took by surprise was how even the American Press became quite critical about some of Trump The banning of visitors, from several identified Muslim countries, entry into the US was akin to his sitting on a timed nuclear bomb policy’to which he paid no heed at all. As bold as brass, President Trump plugged turbulent relations with the American Press by avoiding his first year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
US President Donald Trump
Estoril Conferences
The term ‘immigration’is fully interpreted in a video released to the YouTube by the Estoril Institute, which has since 2009 committed themselves to debates and dialogues on the consequences of globalization by addressing the most relevant factors to migration and worldwide policies in human migration.
Their first meeting was a bull’s eye, in which focus was made on the contradictory demands and anxieties that usually end up in ethnic conflicts. During their second conference, in 2017, a panel aimed to find answers as to how social cohesion could be safeguarded in countries that adhere to strong traditions of intermingled population, as much as to find ways and means of assimilating migrants in host communities. They also have studied how religious and cultural differences could be protected without gradually destroying the host societies.
The Estoril Institute video delves into the antecedents of the modern society:
“Our alphabet is Latin, numeral system is Arabic, and philosophy is Greek. We watch Western movies, listen to Western songs and play Western games with Eastern technology in Eastern machines. . Wen”.
“We live in a world that was discovered by Portuguese and Spanish sailors; our universe was explained by Italian astronomers, and American and Russian astronauts. Furthermore, we live in a world where frontiers seem so important”.
“The English Royal House is German, Spanish Royal House is Austro-Hungarian, Swedish Royal House is French. Greece does not have a Royal House but has a Queen married to King of Spain, and a Prince married to the Queen of England. Oh! You know who also married a Greek immigrant? Monsieur Jean-Marie Lapen Engelbrektsson; the Swedish national hero is a son of a Croatian Catholic mother and a Muslim Bosnian father”.
“The French politician, Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy, who served as the President of France was a son of Hungarian aristocrat, PálIstván ErnőSárközy de Nagy-Bócsa, and the Grand Son of a Jew. He was married to an Italian immigrant. Donald Trump, the man who wants to kick immigrants out of America, is a son of a Scottish immigrant. He is married to a Slovenian wife after divorcing his first Czechoslovakian wife”.
“We live in a world where USA was represented for eight years by Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan and mother American, after meeting each other in a Russian Class in Hawaii. There are more Polish people living outside the Poland than Syrians in Syria. During most of Turkey’s history, the country was not inhabited by Turks. Hungary is not the Land of Hungarians, but it’s a country Hungarians invented when they ran from Mountains in Russia”
“This congruently tallies with the core of the Indian philosopher, speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teaching made in 1929 where he declared that truth is a pathless land and man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, also not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.
”British model
The clamping down on immigration was enforced in the UK in 1905 aimed to curb Jewish, Ukrainian, and Irish immigrants. The Aliens Act subsequently controlled immigrant workers’ rights, followed by a quota system. Aliens Restrictions Act came into force in 1914 and amended it in 1919 to give power to the British Government to refuse entry as well as to deport those who could not support them and their families.
In 1925 Coloured Alien Seamen’s Order came into effect. The British Nationality Act 1948 established a common citizenship, which afforded the UK passport holders in the colonies to enter and settle down in the UK.
Immigration Control Act in 1962 eliminated the rights of Commonwealth citizens to enter Britain with the introduction of a work permits system, as much as dependents to settle down in Britain.
The Nationality Act in 1964 preserved the right to resume citizenship for white settlers, who were under pressure in African countries and who achieved ‘new impedance’. The Commonwealth Immigration Act in 1968 introduced a new system of immigration under the ‘Partials’category. This Act also made it compulsory for husbands and fathers settled in the UK to declare all means of financial support prior to joining their kith and kin.
The 1981 British Nationality Act introduced a three-tier nationality system abolishing principle of IVA SOLI – the right of persons born in the UK to acquire British nationality. In 1986, Commonwealth citizens had to obtain a visa prior to travelling to the UK, and airlines were strictly warned with fines up to £1,000 if ignored the statute, should they allow embarkation of a Commonwealth citizen, without proper legal documents, while ‘White Commonwealth’countries including South Africa were excluded from the ban.
Basically, what it entailed in the UK has been both the Conservative and Labour Governments over the past half a century or so, restricting Asian immigration into the country; the worst being the introduction of ‘virginity’tests by a Labour Administration on Asian young women, who attempted to enter Britain under the ‘fiancé’visa. However, with the protests from the Asian community and humanitarian social worker groups, such flippant regulations were withdrawn.
All things considered, what is visible in the US with the appointment of President Trump is only to fulfil his election promises to curb immigration with the idea of erecting a boundary wall to stop migrants from Mexico, which he pronounced in a tweet message thus:
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our Southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”
2 year old girl crying at the US immigration border when her mother was separated from her.
Whatever said and done, after all, the US has completely been made of immigrants from all over the world.
pic credit: Ceylon Today, Google photos
