Both policy and popular discourse have long relied on a dichotomous presentation of the ‘foreigner': on the one hand, the ‘good foreigner' (from the refugee and victim of trafficking through to the hard worker on whom ‘our' economy depends); and the abuser of the system (welfare scrounger, wage undercutter, illegal immigrant) on the other. Hence much of the debate in practice revolves around how many people fit into each category. What are the proportions of hard workers as compared to welfare scroungers? of refugees to economic migrants?

Most of the rich countries in the world have been bounced or scurried into fairly extreme state action aimed at controlling immigrants and refugees. But they have responded more to the idea of growing migrations than to the actual numbers.

Yes, worldwide migration flows have increased over the last two decades, but immigrants are about 3 percent of the global population. From an estimated 85 million international immigrants in the world, or 2.1 percent of the world population, in 1975, their numbers rose to 175 million by 2000, and to an estimated 185 to 192 million in 2005, or 2.9% of world population. Further, 60% of all immigrants are in the global south, leaving our global north countries with the remaining 40% of immigrants. The fact of the greater concentration of migrants in the developing world is often overlooked. Finally, also overlooked in much of the debate, is the extent of return migration. Thus, to mention just one example, a third of Polish immigrants in the UK have now gone back to Poland, after stays often as short as two years; they have learnt English, accumulated some savings and now want to return to the fuller lives they can have in their home countries.

On 18 June, in the middle of Refugee Week, the European Parliament will vote on the amended directive on common standards and procedures in member states for returning illegally staying third-country nationals, also known as the Returns Directive.

Probably no phenomenon today is more global in reach than the mass migration of people. When I say "global", I am not measuring by simple distance. I am measuring by daily impact.

Whether individuals may cross borders safely, permanently and with dignity is affecting everything from how quickly you can find a doctor, to how hard you must work for a university place, to how much you are paying for an apartment, to how soon a fast food franchise will appear near your apartment. Migration is the human heart of ‘globalisation' - the movement of people, technology, money and, inevitably, cultural influence.

Peace, or something like it, breaks out in Iraq. US-led foreign forces declare violence has tapered off to the lowest levels in years, thanks to additional troops, security cooperation with Sunni tribal leaders and erstwhile insurgents, and a tentative halt to the activities of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. An Iraqi government derided as sectarian and dysfunctional steps up to promote political accommodation and begins taking more responsibility for security and providing services. Stability takes hold, paving the way for about two million Iraqis who have fled the country to make their way home.

Asylum has a pedigree stretching back 4,000 years:

The word ‘asylum' comes from the Greek ‘asylos', that which may not be seized or violated. It referred to a place that was sacred or magical, such as a temple. Those who took sanctuary in such a place put themselves under the protection of the gods and so out of secular control. It allowed time for a wrong to be investigated and a judgment to be handed down. In this sense, temple asylum had a political role to play, until the state itself developed a monopoly of the role of protector.

At least 200 million of the world's people - between 3% and 5% of its total population - are currently on the move outside their country of origin. Many of these would have preferred to stay where they were if they could. Another untold number would move if they could, but can't. Many simply are looking for better opportunities, as human beings have done for millennia. The realities of globalisation - economic, environmental, familial - mean that these numbers are bound to increase.