A/HRC/17/33 21. The Special Rapporteur encouraged States to view irregular migration as an administrative offence, reversing the trend toward greater criminalization, and to incorporate the applicable human rights framework into their bilateral and regional arrangements for managing migration flows and protecting national security interests, as well as to harmonize their national laws and policies with international human rights norms. At the core of immigration policies should be the protection of migrants, regardless of their status or mode of entry. As such, the Special Rapporteur offered practical recommendations for the formation or reform of regional and bilateral cooperation mechanisms and agreements, as well as the enhancement of national training and analysis programmes and policy measures. 22. The Special Rapporteur focused again on the impact of the criminalization of migration on the protection and enjoyment of human rights as a follow-up to his report to the Human Rights Council two years before.1 The report highlighted the detrimental consequences of such policies on groups that should not be considered as irregular migrants, including victims of human trafficking, asylum-seekers and children. The report also provided examples of good practices in the mainstreaming a rights-based approach to migration and managing irregular migration without resorting to its criminalization. 23. The Special Rapporteur had previously warned the international community of the increasing criminalization of irregular migration and the abuses of migrants during all phases of the migration process.2 Two years later, the Special Rapporteur observed with deep concern that the trend towards increasing criminalization continued. In addition, insufficient progress had been made in mainstreaming human rights into migration governance. Yet, migration can be an essential component of development and prosperity in countries of destination, transit and origin in all regions of the world, and migrant labour continues to be vital, and in demand, in most countries around the globe. The Special Rapporteur observed that disregard for human rights in migration management initiatives had detrimental consequences not only for the protection of undocumented or irregular migrants, but also for migrant populations as a whole and host societies at large. 24. Migration policies, plans and programmes that aimed to address solely security and border control concerns lacked human and protection approaches, had a detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights by migrants and did not serve the purpose of deterring irregular immigration or discouraging migrants’ smuggling and human trafficking. The Special Rapporteur drew the attention of the international community to the dangers of these policies, not only for migrants, but also for the migrants’ societies of transit and destination. Research studies had already demonstrated that many enforcement mechanisms designed to prevent irregular or unauthorized migration, including harsh policies of interception, carrier sanctions and immigration control, were responsible for violence and abuse and might have the side effect of encouraging the expansion of smuggling and trafficking networks. The Special Rapporteur also observed with deep concern recent initiatives of federated entities in some States which have taken steps to draft laws with immigration provisions that are contrary to constitutional principles and whose competence relies strictly on the central or federal Government. 25. Criminalizing irregular migrants for the offence of being in a country without adequate documentation made all migrants, regardless of immigration status, potentially vulnerable to racist or xenophobic acts. As a result, migrants were often subject to xenophobic outbreaks of abuse and violence. Migration management based on criminal law tended to disregard a human rights dimension of migration and to focus solely on measures 1 2 6 A/65/222. A/HRC/7/12.