Story highlights Authors: Building walls prompts people to seek illegal means to cross borders

Trafficking in people creates vulnerability that terrorists can exploit, they say

Ben Emmerson is the UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights and an international lawyer, and he specializes in European human rights law and international criminal law. Jessica Jones is a human rights barrister specializing in international and criminal justice work and legal adviser to the UN special rapporteur. The opinions expressed in this commentary are theirs.

(CNN) We live in a world at a crossroads. The conflicts in Syria rage on, seemingly impervious to the various attempts to resolve them -- a horrifying staging ground for broader US-Russian tensions, and the front line of terror groups' battles for territory.

Ben Emmerson

Jessica Jones

A tragic consequence of this and other global conflicts and inequalities are the 65 million displaced people around the world. Last year, 1 million people a month fled their homes, in many cases to escape regions where terrorist groups are active and to seek sanctuary in Western democracies.

As they have made their often perilous journeys, the rhetoric that has greeted them has become increasingly inflammatory. In the final presidential debate Wednesday night, Donald Trump described Syrian refugees as "definitely, in many cases, ISIS-aligned," continuing a trend of incendiary comments around migration he began last year with his call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," and built on this year by calling for immigration to be stopped from "any country that has been compromised by terrorism," a policy that would effectively condemn ordinary Syrians to exile in a deathtrap.

He later clarified that such measures would be "temporary" until "vetting systems" were in place. But even his later comments display intolerance, irresponsibility and a blinding ignorance of the way in which a safe world order -- a world order that keeps us, in the United States, in the UK, in Germany, safe -- is created.

There is a reason that our countries are destinations for migrants fleeing persecution. No one can value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness more than those who have endured and understand the terror of endless bombardments, the oppression of life under ISIS, the despair of once-vibrant cities crumbling around them. What we claim to offer is a set of values that speak to people of all nationalities: freedom, tolerance, opportunity.

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