A major social and political issue is how to control migration, to ensure that it will benefit rather than harm our economies, to guarantee that immigrants and their families are harmoniously inserted into  BIS Review 5/2004  1  our societies; and to avoid the rifts, the marginalization and the problems of law and order caused by unregulated flows.
Voluntary organizations do commendable work in fostering the social integration of immigrants. Many attempts, some very recent, to enter countries illegally with the complicity of criminal organizations have ended tragically, with women and children among the victims.