Measures against irregular migration and the exploitation of migrant labour

Of course, it does not follow from our stance in the debates opened on how migrants, asylum seekers or refugees should be treated that we do not, in general, see irregular migration as a problem. But it is not possible to explain this to those blinded by racism. For them there is nothing to do but pray that God grant them reason, thought and sense, and set them right.

Truth be told, even in every case where we defended the rights of migrants, we also touched on the measures Turkey needs to take against irregular migration. Just as no one wants to become a refugee or to leave their homeland, no country wants to face irregular migration either.

Turkey did not want, and does not want, people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else to be forced to break away from their homelands and take to the road and come. It has taken every kind of measure to prevent this.

Looking only at what has been done regarding Syria over the past 6 years is enough to understand the scale of the measures taken against the asylum seeker issue. Turkey did 3 very important things regarding Syrian asylum seekers that everyone should see very clearly.

The first was to create, inside Syria, a safe place where people could take refuge in their own country even if they were subjected to the cruel attacks of their own rulers. Turkey in fact saw this from the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, that is, after the first waves that fled this crisis and took refuge in Turkey, and tried to get the international community to accept it, but could not. When the number of asylum seekers coming to Turkey approached 5 million, Turkey opened with its own hands this path to a solution, which the US, Russia and the EU countries in particular had resisted accepting. With the three major military operations it carried out inside Syria, it created this safe zone itself. Thanks to this, at least 6 million people accumulated in the zone where they took refuge instead of coming to Turkey, fleeing the massacres inside Syria. Had Turkey not created this zone, it would perhaps now be facing the prospect of another 6 million people seeking refuge in Turkey. That is, contrary to what is supposed, Turkey did not encourage Syrians to come to Turkey; on the contrary, it made great efforts to keep them inside Syria, without abandoning them to death, under conditions in which they could sustain their lives, even if at a minimum.

A second step was to open the way for those who wished to go to the safe zones that had formed, by encouraging them (without ever forcing them). Thanks to this, at least 500 thousand people have returned to Syria. A significant portion also dispersed to other countries via Turkey, and thus the number has fallen to 3.6 million, without Turkey ever deviating from the humanitarian line in its conduct toward asylum seekers.

Turkey is trying to do the same in Afghanistan. Those who still question even Turkey's presence there with the shallowness of "what business does Turkey have there?" cannot think of Turkey's presence there as perhaps, in the long term, part of an effort aimed at preventing that country from producing more migrants. They have neither such a horizon nor such an intention.

On the other hand, migration is a problem not only of Turkey but of the whole world, and especially of the developed world. As injustice in the distribution of income in the world grows and instabilities arise, a flow from insecure and poor regions toward rich and secure regions becomes inevitable. Throughout history this has worked like the most ordinary rule of sociology. One must try to manage it under the most humane conditions. But however much you try to block it, even if you are the US, there is a leakage of it you cannot escape. The waves of migration from Latin American countries into the US have never been completely stopped. Even the walls raised in the Trump period and the measures taken were able to block the flow only up to a point.

Despite this, as a third step, Turkey had long ago begun the work of building a wall on the Syrian border, and we are all watching together as this wall is now being rapidly built on the Iranian border as well, within the framework of the measure taken against Afghan irregular migration. The wall built toward Syria has constituted an important measure not only against irregular migration but also against terror, and it is seen how effective this measure has been in breaking the back of terror in recent years.

It seems that Turkey is only now encountering a problem of this scale. This, setting aside the size of the problem, shows that the country has developed, both in its economic situation and in its political stability, toward a much better and more secure place than the one people try to portray.

Moreover, it is of course not at all pleasant to say this, because there is an economic exploitation dimension to it, but the Turkish economy immediately finds opportunities for itself in incoming migrants and integrates them. In fact, not only in terms of cheap labor but also in terms of qualified labor, knowledge and skills, these migrants meet an important need of Turkey's agriculture, construction and industrial production, and that is already the most important factor drawing them here.

Emphasizing this dimension is necessary in the debate, to draw attention to the other dimension of the matter against those who say that Syrians are only a burden on the economy and are sinking Turkey. But because we are obliged to say this, we are then confronted by know-it-all labor advocates, who do not lift a finger for the rights of asylum seekers, resorting to another kind of grandstanding that drives one to distraction by saying "here, take this confession, Turkey or Turkish businessmen are after exploiting the cheap labor of Syrians anyway."

Some object strongly to comparing Syrian and Afghan migrants with the presence of Turks in Germany, but this very dimension gives that similarity away all too well. That is, perhaps not everyone is aware of it, but it has been this unofficial invitation that has drawn Afghans in particular to Turkey. In one of his pieces Yıldıray Oğur showed very well how and why the qualified labor provided by Afghan labor, especially in agriculture and animal husbandry, cannot be substituted otherwise, and that therefore there is a demand for it.

I wish we could also discuss separately the rights they do not receive, and the humane treatment and remedies they do not see, in return for the evident contribution they make. I hope we will do that too..