Border crossing and death

This morning the BBC highlighted the number of women, children and men dying as they try to cross from Mexico to the US. Mortuaries in Arizona report large numbers of undentified bodies that go unclaimed. Coming so soon after similar tragedies in the Mediterranean, the BBC article is just another reminder of how difficult migration has become for some people. Migration is essentially about survival, about finding new opportunities, finding employment, opening up new avenues for children. The price being paid for attempting to achieve  what the world has come to believe is good and what UNDP has so correctly called “human security” has become inflated beyond all proportion. One of the reasons the price has become so inflated, of course, is that countries are putting up higher and higher barriers that become more challenging every year. In the case of the USA, the so called battle to keep out migrants has also been taken up by vigilante groups that love to patrol the Mexican-US border and take it upon themselves  to enforce what they see as the law. For a country that owes its origins and survival to migrants to allow this, is indicative of how lawless the world of migration has become. Why countries seem unable or unwilling to come together to discuss and formulate global policies that are demographically sound, economically justified and ethically correct remains a mystery. Or is it a mystery?