On December 18, 1990, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Each year on December 18, the United Nations, through the UN-related agency International Organization for Migration (IOM), uses International Migrants Day to highlight the contributions made by the roughly 272 million migrants, including more than 41 million internally displaced persons, and the challenges they face.

Each year on December 18, International Migrants Day is marked to highlight the contributions made by the roughly 272 million migrants and the challenges they face.According to statistics, the population of refugees in the world was estimated at 281 million people in 2020, which constitutes 3.6 percent of the world’s population.

Meanwhile, the population of Iranian immigrants in the world is 1.8 million people according to the latest available statistics in 2020, which constitutes 2.23 percent of Iran’s population. However, according to internal sources, the population of Iranian immigrants abroad is 4.04 million people, although this statistic cannot be verified based on international sources.

The population of Iranian immigrants in the world during 1990 was 820,000 people, and this figure increased to 1.8 million people in 2020. In fact, during the last 30 years, the population of Iranian immigrants has increased 2.2 times.

While Iran’s share of the world’s population is about 1.07 percent, the Iranian immigrant population has increased from 0.54 percent in 1990 to 0.70 percent in 2020, which is still lower than Iran’s share of the global population, therefore, it has never reached the 1 percent over the past three decades.

According to the UNHCR statistics in 2021, about 21.5 million people in the world are asylum seekers. Among them, the countries of Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan have the largest number of people in refugee status in the world. Also, the citizens of Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Iraq have the highest share of asylum seekers in the world.

Among the 10 main refugee-hosting countries in the world, Iran is in ninth place with 798,343 people. However, in recent years and following the rule of the Taliban over Afghanistan, forecasts indicate that 4.5 to 5 million Afghans will immigrate to Iran. Most of these people are considered unauthorized citizens due to illegal entry. The United States, Peru, and Turkey also host the highest number of asylum seekers in the world.

Meanwhile, Germany, France, and Spain are the main destinations of new asylum seekers.

Which nations have the most asylum seekers?

In 2020, asylum applications were mostly filed by nationals of Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Syria. While more than four-fifths of Venezuelan asylum applications were filed in America, almost all Afghans and Syrians filed their asylum applications in Europe.

In 2020, 33,800 refugees from 126 countries of origin received citizenship in 28 countries, while there was no significant change in the number of countries that reported granting citizenship to refugees compared to 2019 (28 countries in 2020 and 25 countries in 2019).

Out of a total of 33,800 cases of citizenship in the world, the Netherlands is in the first place by granting citizenship to 25,700 people (three-quarters of all cases of granting citizenship). In general, 85 percent of the cases in 2020 were issued by European countries. In addition, in 2020, after the Netherlands, two countries of Canada and France, respectively, granted the highest number of citizenship permissions to refugees.

99% of immigrants in Iran are Afghans

Before the recent wave of immigration, 95 percent of immigrants to Iran were Afghans, 2.5 percent were Iraqis, and the rest were Pakistanis, Lebanese, Yemenis, Syrians, and Nigerians, but after the events happened in Afghanistan, currently, about 99 percent of the immigrants in Iran are Afghans.

Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Iran was host to about 3.5 million immigrants, 1.5 million of whom were legal immigrants and the rest were illegal, but after that, about 1 to 1.5 million immigrants entered Iran. Therefore, in total, more than 2,600,000 immigrants are illegally living in Iran.

In the United States, illegal immigrants are even deprived of education in schools, but in Iran, education is free for foreign nationals, and it can be said that the children of all immigrants, except for some of the newly arrived, benefit from free education, which is unprecedented in the world. Last year, Iran opened its borders to Afghans who left their country after the arrival of the Taliban and was praised in international forums.

Iranian citizenship to children born to Iranian women, foreign men

Under a new nationality law, which was amended in 2019, nearly 105,000 children at risk of becoming stateless are eligible for Iranian citizenship which allows children under 18 years to apply for identity documents.

Some 105,000 below the age of 18 years have filed applications, while, 14000 of whom have so far received birth certificates and ID cards.

According to the law, children of Iranian women and non-Iranian men who were born before or after the law can be Iranian citizens in case the Iranian mother requested that they have no security problems before the age of 18.

These children, after reaching the age of 18, can apply for Iranian citizenship if not requested by the mother, then will be granted Iranian citizenship in case of no security problem.

Migration of human resources: an opportunity or a threat?

What differentiates the problem of manpower migration in developing and less developed countries from developed countries is the loss of human capital forever. In other words, what turns immigration into a negative thing is the need of the country of origin, which is if the necessary platforms are provided to use the capacity of immigrants abroad, not only brings economic benefits, but it will also lead to the transfer of skills, knowledge, ideas and wealth across national borders.

In other words, the threat of migration of human resources, especially specialized human resources, can become an opportunity to benefit from the capital, knowledge, network, etc. of immigrants. The distinguishing feature of countries in terms of the opportunity or threat of immigration is the way countries face the issue, politicize and manage it.

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To eradicate polio, the oral vaccination plan will be implemented in two phases. The first phase started on May 7 and will continue until May 10, and the second phase will run from June 11 to 13, Mohammad Reza Sarbazi, director of the department of disease prevention and control of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, said.

Due to the transmission of poliovirus in Asia and Africa and the indigenous virus in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is necessary to carry out additional annual immunization operations to maintain polio-free, he explained.

In this large-scale operation, Iranian children under the age of five and foreign immigrants will be inoculated through door-to-door visits in high-risk areas across the country, he further stated.

In this plan, all children aged 5 years or younger in high-risk areas, regardless of previous immunization history, will receive two drops of oral vaccine and will repeat by four to six weeks.

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

Over the last decade, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) made steady progress on the path to eradication. Wild poliovirus types 2 and 3 (WPV2 and WPV3) were declared eradicated in 2015 and 2019, respectively; the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region was declared free of poliovirus in 2014; and most recently, the WHO African Region was certified free of wild poliovirus (WPV) in August 2020. However, the final steps towards eradication have proven the most difficult.

Measles outbreak in neighboring countries

Concerns about the spread of measles in the country are growing as the Afghan population grows, Mohsen Zahraei, head of the department of preventable diseases with vaccines of the Ministry of Health, also said.

Measles mostly infects children under the age of 10, and all families need to get their children vaccinated between the ages of 12 to 18 months, he said, adding that vaccination will be free of charge.

The measles vaccination program in Iran started in 1984 when 34 percent of the population was vaccinated in the first year and 90 to 95 percent of the population after 6 years. Also in 2003, 33 million people were vaccinated with a national program to eradicate measles in the country.

“We managed to minimize the measles incidence rate in three years and increase vaccination coverage to 95 to 98 percent. In 2019, the World Health Organization approved the elimination of measles and rubella in Iran,” he noted.

According to him, in the Eastern Mediterranean region, among the 22 countries, only three countries of Bahrain, Oman, and Iran, have succeeded in receiving this approval, which is a sign of health indicators promotion that plays an important role in tourist arrivals and development process.

However, we are witnessing measles outbreaks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

“We have stepped up our efforts to maintain the achievement of measles elimination by identifying 3,000 cases of suspected measles in one month, and by early last week, 120 positive cases of measles had been recorded, which is also increasing.

Some 64 percent of the infected people are Afghans, 3 percent are Pakistanis and the rest are Iranians. The disease causes severe symptoms in people with malnutrition, including blindness, pneumonia, and brain infection.

The disease is much more contagious than coronavirus, and kills one to five percent of the patients,” he explained.

Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. Before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every 2–3 years and measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

More than 140,000 people died from measles in 2018 – mostly children under the age of 5 years, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

Measles is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body. Measles is a human disease and is not known to occur in animals.

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“As earlier stated by various Iranian officials, the Islamic Republic strongly denies the reports that Iranian border guards have forced a number of Afghan citizens to cross Harirud River, causing an incident for them,” Seyed Abbas Mousavi said on Wednesday.

“Despite the fact that the issue has nothing to do with Iran, due to the request of Afghan officials, the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic sent an official note to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Tehran on Wednesday, announcing the readiness of Tehran to work jointly with the Afghan side to investigate the allegations,” he added.

“This was done due to the brotherly ties based on the principles of goodwill and good neighborliness between the two countries,” Mousavi said.

He also stated that Iran considers its borders with Afghanistan as the borders of peace and friendship, highlighting its determination to continue the friendly and brotherly relations with Afghanistan based on mutual respect.

Afghan news media had reported that about 50 Afghan migrants crossing into Iran illegally had been beaten and thrown into a river. Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday said an inquiry had been launched.

In Similar remarks on Sunday, the spokesman expressed sympathy with the families of the victims, and said, “This incident has occurred on Afghan soil, and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Border Police has denied that any happening in relation to this has taken place on the soil of our country.”

Iran spends eight billion dollars on Afghan migrants every year in various sectors.

According to the latest official figures, 951,142 Afghan refugees reside in Iran. In addition to the refugees, there are around 2.5 million Afghan nationals living in Iran, inclusive of passport holders and undocumented Afghans.

The UN refugee agency has, on numerous occasions, praised Iran for hosting Afghan refugees for more than four decades.

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Collecting and storing the DNA of people simply detained and not tried or convicted of a crime has drawn criticism from civil rights advocates.

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The young chancellor of Austria, who is one of the main critics of EU immigration policies at the current time, stated:

“The distribution of immigrants in the EU countries based on a fixed quota is wrong. It doesn’t help Europe if we force countries to accept refugees. I criticize the plan according to which 120 thousand refugees were divided in the European Union member states, which the ministers of this union had about two years ago agreed upon. If we do this, the European Union would be further divided. It should be to EU member states to decide on the number of refugees they want to accept. ”

However, the heads of the European Union believe that the only way to cope with the immigration crisis and the presence of asylum seekers in Europe, is the commitment of all members of the United Europe to this issue. Otherwise, only countries like Germany and Sweden will be in crisis over asylum seekers, and this will increase the social vulnerability in them. Since 2015, we have witnessed widespread criticism all over Europe about how to deal with this crisis.

However, the Chancellor of Austria, in his first official position on the issue, considered the quota of immigrants to be completely meaningless. Sebastien Kurz has his own argument:
“Most of the immigrants don’t want to go to Bulgaria or Hungary, they especially want to come to Germany, Austria or Sweden.” In addition to Bulgaria and Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland also don’t want to accept refugees. According to the European Statistics Office, most immigrants coming to the European Union are seeking asylum in Germany. ”

Furthermore, the Chancellor of Austria is one of the main critics ofthe Joint action planon the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement. The new Austrian government believes that this agreement should be terminated, and subsequently, negotiations with Turkey on joining the European Union should be stopped. However, the Austrian authorities have not actually proposed an alternative solution to the crisis of asylum seekers in the United Europe. They are merely critics of the status quo. Another important point is that Austria will take over the EU Presidency in the second half of the coming year (2018). Undoubtedly, in this case, we will witness the intensification of the disputes between the Austrian government and other members of the European Union over the resolution of the asylum seekers’ crisis.
An issue that has already raised concerns among EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In any case, the statements of the Austrian Chancellor show that the European asylum seekers crisis will remain strong in the coming year.

European Authorities Concerns over Changes in Catalonia
The recent victory of independent parties in the Catalan parliamentary elections has raised concerns among European officials. The Green continent politicians are concerned about the impact of this phenomenon in other parts of Europe. In any case, Spain is considered one of the EU and the Eurozone member states, and any political and geographical changes in this country can affect other parts of Europe. On the other hand, European authorities are worried about the raise of other independent parties in Europe (after the victory of the Catalan separatists).Although the European Union remained silent and didn’t accept the referendum held in Catalonia in 2017, which was held without the permission of the central government, recent parliamentary elections have been held by the permit of the central government in a completely formal and legal manner. Therefore, the European Union will have to recognize the results of these elections.

Some European news sources have emphasized that European authorities, while not planning to directly enter into the conflict between the central government of Spain and Catalonia, but they secretly encourage “Mariano Rajoy”, the prime minister of Spain, to negotiate with the leaders of Catalonia and resolve this conflict. Some analysts of the Europe’s affairs argue that if more autonomy is granted to Catalonia and some adjustments are made to the tax and economic structure of the region, the public opposition towards the central government of Spain would drop to a great extent in this state. In this case, many of the separatists would retreat from their positions against the Spanish government. However, it doesn’t seem that Madrid government is simply going to grant benefits to the separatists.

The Spanish government thought that after recent changes in Catalonia and the dissolution of the parliament by the central government, the independents have to accept defeat in the region’s parliamentary elections. And so “Catalonia’s concern” will be removed for at least four to five years. However, the results of recent parliamentary elections and the acquisition of 52 percent of the votes and winning of 70 seats (out of 135 parliamentary seats) by the independent parties have changed all the equations to the detriment of the European Union.
At the moment, the EU authorities are even more concerned with the current developments in Catalonia. However, as noted, European leaders do not intend to directly enter this equation because this would raise lots of sensitivities within the Spanish community.

The German newspaper “Tagesschau” writes in this regard:
“After the local parliamentary elections in Catalonia which resulted in the victory of the separatist parties, the European Union has had a cautious reaction to its results. However, there are concerns behind closed doors. Many European delegations have called on both sides (the central government and the separatists) to enter into negotiations in this regard. ”

Undoubtedly, over the coming weeks and months, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will report on the latest developments in Catalonia in his private meetings with European authorities, and will ask for their helpin dealing with this issue.

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