Protections would benefit the economies of receiving as well as source countries.

Economic protections are not only good for the migrants themselves, but they benefit all countries involved. Migrants move from countries that have a lot of workers but not a lot work available, to countries with a lot of work available, but not enough workers. Migration is a market mechanism, and it is perhaps the most important aspect of globalization. The growth of the world’s great economies has relied throughout history on the innovation and invention of immigrants. This is particularly the case in the United States, which is famously a nation of immigrants, where the architect of the Apollo program Wernher von Braun immigrated from Germany and Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the telephone was born in Scotland. More recently immigration has been instrumental in the success of Silicon Valley co-founder of Google Sergey Brin is Russian born while the co-founder of Yahoo Jerry Yang came from Taiwan.[1] The new perspective brought by migrants leads to new breakthroughs, which are some of the most important benefits to receiving countries from migration. The exploitation of migrant workers that exists in the status quo creates tensions and prejudices that hamper this essential creative ability of migrants in the workplace. Source countries are equally aided by migration. Able workers who would be unemployed in their home land are able to work in a new country, and then send money—“remittances”—back to their families. Migrants sent home $317 billion in remittances in 2009, which is three times the world’s total foreign aid, and in at least seven countries this money accounted for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product.[2] One of the important goals of migrant rights is to protect these remittances, and thus to protect the economies of source countries that require them to survive. Irene Khan shows that migrant protections are important for everybody involved:  "When business exploits irregular migrants, it distorts the economy, creates social tensions, feeds racial prejudice and impedes prospects for regular migration. Protecting the rights of migrant workers -- regular and irregular -- makes good economic and political sense for all countries -- whether source, destination or transit."[3] Both sides are likely to benefit more if migrants are welcomed and allowed to join the formal economy; they will be better able to work, they will pay taxes and national insurance to the host country and they themselves will be more secure so will be able to send more home. This benefit to the source state could be even greater if the benefits from paying national insurance were made portable and continue to be paid when they return. [1] Marcus Wohlson, ‘Immigration chief seeks to reassure Silicon Valley’, USA Today, 22 February 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-02-22/silicon-valley-tech-i... [2] Human Rights Watch, "Saudi Arabia/GCC States: Ratify Migrant Rights Treaty," April 10th, 2003, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2003/04/10/saudi-arabiagcc-states-ratify-migr.... [3] Irene Khan, "Invisible people, irregular migrants," The Daily Star, June 7th, 2010, http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=141601.