MIGRANTS ENRICH CULTURES AND SOCIETIES

VATICAN CITY, DEC 18, 2006 (VIS) - On December 1, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi C.S., permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and International Institutions in Geneva, delivered an address before the 92nd council session of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

  In his English-language talk, made public today, Archbishop Tomasi recalled that "the lesson of history is that migrants enrich cultures and societies and that transnational families and communities create bridges of understanding and productive interaction. It shows that the most important resource of all is the human person."

  "If the economy of the receiving countries benefits from the work of the immigrants - obviously it cannot do without them - the life aspirations of the immigrants must be attended to, and the possibility to integrate must be given. National legislation cannot aim at regulating only the flows of services and jobs without taking into account the person that provides those services. For this reason," the archbishop concluded, "family reunification must be a primary consideration: the family plays a fundamental role in the integration process, in giving stability to the presence of the immigrants in the new social environment, and even in the dynamics of temporary migrations."
DELSS/MIGRATIONS/GENEVA:TOMASI                    VIS 20061218 (210)