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Kids in cages: Geneva protest urges UN action on Trump migration policy

Teenagers huddled in a cage outside the UN in Geneva on Monday, as protesters demanded that the world body address the "unconscionable" US policy of separating migrant families crossing its southern border.

Kids in cages: Geneva protest urges UN action on Trump migration policy
Observers say many children separated from their parents remain in US custody Photo: AFP

Three teens wearing t-shirts with “#ClassroomsNotCages” scrawled across the front stood inside a small cage erected outside the gates of the United Nations's European headquarters, as dozens of demonstrators urged the UN Human Rights Council take on President Donald Trump's administration.

“The action today is about creating more pressure and more exposure of just how terrible and dehumanising this policy of the American government is towards children,” said Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, which helped organise the protest.

Photo: AFP

“What the Trump administration is doing is both lawless and immoral, and because it is so focused on children, it is unconscionable,” she told the AFP news agency.

The union was among 15 labour organisations and rights groups that filed a complaint a year ago with the UN's top rights body over the Trump administration's so-called “zero tolerance” policy of separating migrant 
parents and children who illegally cross the border.

According to the complainants, the issue has reached the final stages of the Human Rights Council's review process, and its Situations Working Group is scheduled to consider it this week.

The rights council secretariat refused to comment, telling AFP only that its complaint procedure is “by definition confidential”.

The complainants are meanwhile hoping the council will issue an opinion “and make it clear that what has happened in America is a violation of the international protocols and international rights declarations,” Weingarten said.

'Purposefully cruel'

Amid domestic and international outcry, Trump announced last June that his administration would halt the family separation policy.

But by then, thousands of children had been removed from family members and placed in temporary accommodation, leading to harrowing images and reports of administrative chaos in which many parents have been unable to find their children.

Observers say many of those children remain in US custody, and maintain that the separations are continuing.

“We know kids are still being separated. We know kids are still being held,” Weingarten said.

Sandra Cordero, who heads the organisation “Families Belong Together” that has been working to reunite many of the separated families, agreed.

“There are still hundreds of cases of separation,” she told AFP.

And out of the 2,500 children who were separated in the months prior to Trump's announcement last June, “there are still hundreds that have not been reunited or even contacted,” she said.

Activists also decry the “deplorable” conditions in many of the places where separated children are being held, and point to the fact that at least six children, between the ages of two and a half and 16, have died in US custody.

And Cordero especially slammed the government's “purposefully cruel” failure to establish a system to keep track of the children and ensure family reunification would be possible. 

Weingarten meanwhile said that Monday's demonstration was important to keep the spotlight on the plight of the children – some just months old – taken from their families.

“We need to keep that level of outrage alive,” she said.

“That is the only way this is going to be change.”

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IMMIGRATION

ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

In the past few years, an increasing number of foreigners have come to Switzerland, swelling the ranks of its population to 9 million people. Will this trend continue in the future?

ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

From a country of just 8 million people a decade ago, Switzerland’s population grew to over 9 million residents in 2023 — primarily due to more foreign nationals coming in.

“Switzerland has been in a situation of uninterrupted demographic growth for several decades, and this is explained in particular by the arrival of young migrants, who also contribute to the Swiss birth rate,” Philippe Wanner, professor at the Institute of Demography and Social Economics at the University of Geneva told The Local.

Just in the period between July 2022 and July 2023, for instance, more than 90,000 foreigners settled in Switzerland.

Now forecasts call for the population to swell to 10 million within the next decade — which has prompted the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) to collect enough signatures to launch a national vote in the near future to stop more foreigners from coming into the country.

The SVP argues that Switzerland’s infrastructure — including housing, healthcare system, and public transportation — would not be able to withstand so many more residents.

READ ALSO : Switzerland faces new anti-immigration vote 

This is based on the assumption that as many — or even more — foreigners will continue to move to Switzerland in future, attracted by salaries that are quite a bit higher than the wages they would earn for the same kind of work in their home countries.

But is there a credible scenario under which immigration will slow down?

According to Swiss demographer Hendrik Budliger, high immigration numbers in recent years “don’t necessarily mean the trend will continue.”

Certain things would have to happen at the political and economic level, however — both in Switzerland and abroad — for this scenario to become reality.

These are the main ones:

Fewer people leaving their home countries

One factor, according to Budliger, would be that other countries in Europe that are grappling with labour shortages as Switzerland is “will try to retain or bring back their workforce.”

In Italy and Portugal, for instance, “significant tax deductions are granted” to keep their workers from leaving.

“If more countries create such [financial] incentives to retain employees, Switzerland will become less attractive,” he pointed out.

Economist Manuel Buchmann agreed that  “EU nations themselves need this skilled workforce and are willing to do a lot to ensure that their nationals don’t leave the country.”

Fewer job vacancies in Switzerland

The country is suffering from an acute shortage of qualified workers — the main reason why many employers are hiring workforce from the EU and EFTA (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) nations.

If, however, Switzerland’s low unemployment rate should increase, or if suitable candidates can be found within the country, then companies will not recruit employees from abroad.

This is especially true as the Swiss law stipulates that a job can be offered to a foreign national only if no qualified candidates can be found in Switzerland.

Anti-immigration initiatives are accepted

In 2020, 61.7 percent of voters turned down SVP’s proposal to curb immigration from the EU.

This meant that Swiss companies could continue to recruit from those countries.

However, if voters decide to go the opposite way — for instance, by accepting the SVP’s latest anti-immigration proposal — then the government would have to implement measures to drastically curb the number of foreigners coming into the country.

READ ALSO: Why Switzerland can’t rely on foreign workers to fill its labour shortages

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