There is practically no day in which we do not have news about the migratory phenomenon from less developed countries. The pressure of arrivals in Europe is so great and growing that it has generated restrictive reactions, not only on the part of individual countries, but also at EU level with the recent approval of reforms that tighten migration policy. Beyond migrations caused by war conflicts or purely political factors, on a global scale it can be said that the bulk of migrations have economic justification.

In terms of quality of life, the attractiveness of the most developed countries is undeniable in most aspects that can be compared with the issuing countries in terms of work, opportunities and prospects for a better life and a higher level of well-being. The illusion of reaching this potentially better world has a powerful calling effect for the most awake and restless. However, facts such as universal access without direct cost to social benefits that are unthinkable in the countries of origin also reinforce the call effect. In a similar vein, greater security, lower social inequality, better institutional quality, order, a good minimum wage, etc. also have a knock-on effect.

Emigrating from economically poor countries without prospects is more attractive the greater the differences between a sending country and a receiving country. The emigrant knows these differences better and better thanks to globalization and thanks to the references given to them by relatives and friends who already took the step of emigrating. It cannot be denied that idealization and references to the most developed world generate a call effect.

However, most of the migration phenomenon is due to factors on the other side of the coin, which is none other than the flight effect, escape. About what? From hunger, from miserable salaries, from precarious jobs, from legal insecurity, from the lack of basic services, from corrupt political systems, from conflicts, from injustice, from inequality, in short from the lack of vital prospects of minimal quality. .

The strength of these factors has to be enormous to justify uprooting yourself from the place where you were born, from your family and from your own culture. The need to leave must be so great that one is capable of putting all one’s savings and belongings into buying a trip without any guarantee, literally risking one’s life, and, if one arrives, with the risk of repatriation for having committed an act. illegal. The value given to emigrating is the value of life.

On the immigration issue, I would ask those who remain with the discourse that everything is a consequence of the call effect to also keep in mind something as humanitarian as risking one’s life to escape hunger and poverty. From here we talk about how to treat such a delicate problem.