Caritas Internationalis and Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) are calling on the UN to ensure “real change” to “benefit migrants and refugees, ensuring their protection, safety and dignity”. The appeal is in response to the document adopted at the Summit that took place at the UN headquarters in New York yesterday. Indeed, although the text is “an important step towards the global governance of migration and development” since it focuses on “respecting the rights of all migrants and a shared responsibility for refugee reception”, there is an alarming “gap” between “such declarations and current policies and practices on the ground”. In the document released today, the two Catholic bodies put forward a series of requests: that priority is given to “meeting essential protection needs and ensuring full respect for international refugee and human rights law”; that “the root causes of forced migration” are addressed to make migration both safe and voluntary; that overseas development aid is not used to pay for the costs of refugees at home; that the list of the so-called “safe countries” to which migrants are repatriated is checked; and that reception responsibilities are better shared among governments. Finally, a special call is made for the protection of minors to contrast human trafficking and sexual exploitation, as well as racism and xenophobia, with integration policies involving the host communities.