ILLEGAL MIGRATION AND THE MIGRATION PHENOMENON AT THE FRONTIERS OF ROMANIA.

• Author: Galateanu, Oana

1. Introduction

   The migration represents the movement of some large groups of individuals from their origin country towards other countries, as well as the consequences they produce at cultural, social, demographic and economic level.

   The migration can be done legally or illegally, the migrants using different ways of leaving their origin country, as well as of crossing different states or of entering and establishing in the destination countries.

   From legal point of view, the migration can represent (Stoica, 2014: 88) the practical expression of the human tendency towards a better life and comfort which has evolved in the modern period by stating the lawful right named "the right to free circulation" of persons.

   According to its manifestation in connection to the state borders, it is distinguished an internal migration--achieved within a state and an external migration--that involves the movement from the origin state or from where the respective person resides to another state, in order to settle temporarily or definitively.

   In Romania, the migration phenomenon came into prominence after 1989 and has evolved according to the transformations registered in the economic area--by entering into the economy market--from political and social point of view. Unfortunately, opening the EU member states' frontiers, ensuring the free movement, the freedom of services and goods exchange and information exchange, have favored the amplitude of the organized crime and terrorism phenomena, which have enlarged the action areas and the criminal organizations have improved their methods of action and training for their members. At the same time, the precarious conditions from some states and the world crises have generated an increase of the illegal migration form, which is considered as the most dynamic element of the organized crime (Cf. idem, 90). At present, it is noticed a new phenomenon represented by the transit illegal migration from Central and Eastern Europe towards the Western Europe and the involvement of the criminal organizations in the human trafficking.

   Romania, by acquiring the attribute of being a EU member state, was compelled to reevaluate its Border Police institution and to take certain measures necessary for achieving the vertical relations of the activities performed in order to constitute some active and elastic structures which would be in accordance with the structure of the Romanian National Police and with the similar ones belonging to EU member states. At the same time, starting from January 1st, 2007, Romania has totally embraced the Community Acquis and it has been preoccupied by its evolution in Justice and Internal Affairs areas, dealing with problems like: illegal immigration, the control done at the borders, the traffic of drugs, the organized crime, money laundering, the cooperation in Police and judiciary areas, as well as mutual acknowledgement of judiciary decisions. Romania holds the Eastern border of the EU and this fact determines the preoccupation for the migration phenomenon, which, actually, represents another EU priority from political point of view. As EU border area, Romania deals both with legal and illegal migration and in what concerns the illegal migration forms, the direct, indirect and transit forms of illegal migration are met.

   Reference to the legal migration, it does not pose any problems and usually, it is an economical one and it deals with legal movement of the labor force in the European states.

   But there has to be a constant preoccupation at the level of our country and of the Romanian Border Police, in connection to the illegal migration forms, as Romania is located on the route towards Occidental Europe, where there are already shaped illegal migration routes which have the ability to adapt to all condition changes imposed by the concrete aspects which occur.

2. Factors that Favor the Illegal Migration and Its Effects for Romania

   In order to protect its own citizens, the institutions with competency in fighting against illegal migration from our country have discovered the internal and external risk factors that influence, through their nature and activity, the security of the state and the values of democracy and which produce harmful consequences to the national interests. It was concluded that (Cf. idem, 220, and 221) the internal factors would be:

   The abusive exercise of right, manifested by the abusive usage of the legislation regarding the statute of refugees in the illegal migration plan, by using the asylum institution and involving the coverage of three phases, namely:

1. The accession in Romania of those persons that act as organizers of the international networks of human trafficking, in order to settle the logistics of the networks in large urban areas (like Timisoara, Arad, Oradea, Bucharest, Constanta...