Immigrants
© Jorge Duenes / ReutersImmigrants
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has announced Washington's withdrawal from the process to create a global compact aimed at facilitating international migration, as it goes against the American idea of sovereignty.

In a statement Saturday, Haley said that then-President Obama's decision to commit the US to the process by signing the non-binding New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants in September 2016 had come at the expense of America's interest.

"The New York Declaration contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with US immigration and refugee polices and the Trump Administration's immigration principles," she said in a written statement tweeted by the US mission to the UN.

"The global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with the US sovereignty," the statement concluded.


According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN migration agency, the signatories of the document, that was to pave the way for the adoption of the global compact for migration in 2018, have pledged to protect the rights and freedoms of migrants, "regardless of their migratory status," facilitate their integration, fight racial and other forms of discrimination.

Outlining the main objectives of the future compact, the IOM cited the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, that calls on countries to work together to "facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration."

While announcing the US decision to pull out from the landmark initiative, Haley still praised what she framed as Washington's "long-standing moral leadership" in providing support to migrants all over the world, promising that its "generosity will continue."

She explained the motives behind the move, saying that such domestic policy matters as migration decisions "must always be made by Americans and Americans alone."

"We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter the country," she stressed.

Thus, the global compact for migration becomes yet another piece of Obama's global legacy dismantled by the Trump administration along with the Paris Climate Accord and, possibly, the Iranian nuclear deal, which is still intact but hanging in the balance.

As far as US internal matters, the US president has taken a much more hardline stance on illegal immigration, scrapping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in September and giving Congress six months to pass a law regulating the status of some 700,000 immigrants who came into the US illegally as minors.

Also known as "Dreamers," they were granted a temporary protection from deportation by Obama's executive action in 2012. With Congress struggling to reach a deal, hundreds of Dreamers took over the Senate building last month, demanding it pass a law granting them legal status. The failure to find a compromise over DACA before December 8 could lead to a government shutdown, as Democrats are demanding that any budget deal should include language providing protection for DACA recipients.

Trump's immigration policy agenda also includes bringing an end to the Green Card lottery, replacing it with a merit-based system and cracking down on "sanctuary cities."