With the utmost respect for Mr Annan, who was a stellar representative of the best that the UN has to offer, in the form of a popular person and face to the organization, the issue, at hand is complicated. While topics associated are convulauted on all ends of the matter; a grave misunderstanding of options available to illegal immigrants in the developed world, a grave misuse of soveriegn power in the developing world, and no individual responsibility for socio-economic matters at the individual level by the peoples of the world.



With development comes lessor birth rates. With higher standards of living, in freer societies, with some sense of collective sense for each others well-being due to higher standards of living, people make individual choices that maintain some level of higher standards of living and service provision by the sovereign. that is, they have less children. Despite the hypothetical postulations of Hollywood screen-writers, and their anti-societal, anti-government posturing, and simple moralistic pandering, there is no simple, moral, ethical, just or fair choice in these matters.



I used to work with refugees and asylees, the most privileged class of immigrant. and they get far less than what many people in advanced countries would imagine; religious communities are the drivers of their resettlement, and main supporters of the process, despite the fact that many refugees do not share a relevant faith (Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians serving Muslim, Orthodox, Buddhist refugees).



Now, the issue of migration will rise. But this rises as Developing Countries still pander to Popular Nationalisms, while notions of the Social, or Imperialism, or Colonialism, still offer excuses, decades after decolonization. While Hollywood, Social Critics and Authoritarian Rulers, press thwese dated, quasi-Marxist perspectives, as the world moves to subsequent eras where the utility of these excuses grows thinner and thinner into irrelevant abstraction while the world is faced with a global community relying on the same old excuses, and global common problems cycle to greater and greater challenges, philosophical and moral dichotomies tantalize the minds of the superficially minded. Black and white thinking prevails.



Take Australia, sounds great that it should take more refugees, but Australia is at its limits concerning domestic sources of water, is buidling desalinization plants, but desalination plants use extraordinary amounts of energy, put large amounts of salinity back into oceans, killing the aquatic ecosystem, natural habitats, fish stocks, etc....



Take Italy. High amount of debt. Aging Population. Unsustainable social benefits, and legacy costs.



Take the US. Higher levels of unemployment. Up to 105 of the current population in illegal immigrants at present. Challenged State Fiscal sustainability, where education is paid for. Illegals can go to school.



Now is the time to hold the developing world repsonsibility for its development challenges, and stop using superficial ethical and moral posturing. further, humans need to understand, that they themselves are responsible at the personal level as well. I hope for Africa's development. ut if the common man and woman do not understand that their choices will entrench African poverty and advance grave ecological challenges if they do not make better choices as to family size, than scarce can we blame Europe or other advanced nations from attempting to stem the tide of illegal immigration.



Further, much harder lines need to be taken agaisnt trans-national criminal organizations that engage in human trafficking. There are grave challenges to global stability. Much less moral posturing need be considered, and far more grave punishments need be advanced to challenging those who would, for their mere personal profit, add to the grave problems associated with more mundane human choices (family size, commitment to education, stewardship of environment, etc). It is time that we understood that some actors do not deserve the same protections as those of us with the integrity and character to assume equality in or dealings with others. We should not err on the side of superficiality in the consideration of solutions to the grave challenges facing our collective humanity. More terminal conclusions need be on the table to solve the problems, exacerbated by those of lessen character and intent. We should err on the side of good versus evil, in more pragmatic ways, terms, and consider more exacting methods for putting an end to those groups and things that inhibit the common development of humanity on a safer trajectory.



Migration, as a problem will rise. As Annan noes in his last sentence, the world needs clearer lines of responsibility, states and individuals.



