The problem with the UN's current approach to migration is that it actively denies impacts on receiving communities. This is a consequence of its active denial of impacts of population growth since the 1994 Cairo conference generated a taboo around it. A moral responsibility is generated by emphasising climate change as a driver of displacement, yet in each instance to date, population pressure is the chief underlying driver. The article affirms this, highlighting the role of resource scarcity and access to land and water, yet denies that this is population pressure by definition. Of course it will always boil over in extremes of weather, and climate change intensifies these, but it is population pressure which holds the situation at boiling point.

So what should this mean for migration justice? Surely a sense of mutual responsibility should exist. Communities which have made little effort to limit births and empower women should not be given the same access to migrate as those who have progressed. The former tend to be less willing to integrate, which is another reason to resist them.

The comment from Kien exemplifies the central paralysing myth:

"I understand global population growth is slowing, and will continue to slow as long as income per capita continues to rise in emerging and low-income countries. In fact, the most humane way to limit population growth is to raise education levels (especially among girls) and income levels."

Firstly, even if this were true, it does not excuse the denial of the scientific fact of population pressure driving poverty, conflict and displacement, and therefore it not being legitimate to push all the blame and burden on developed countries. Secondly, it is not true: the global population has been growing by a bigger number each year this century. "Relative" growth rate has declined since 1970 only because the denominator (global population) got bigger relative to the numerator (the number added in a given year). Additionally, focussing efforts on raising education levels for girls has NOT been a particularly successful driver of fertility decline. It is a lie concocted to devalue the voluntary family planning programs of the 1970s and 1980s, which were hugely successful. But the constant denial that population growth is generating problems for the poor means there is no political will nor financial resources for such programs today.

The problem with the UN's migration agenda is that it DEPENDS on denying population growth impacts, in order to dispel concern in receiving countries, so it ACTIVELY UNDERMINES the likelihood that poor, high fertility countries will get the family planning programs that would avoid deprivation and displacement more effectively than anything else. This agenda is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.