The Role Of East African Community Integration In Promoting Immigration Policies In Tanzania

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the role of East African Community Integration in promoting Immigration Policies in Tanzania. The study sought to achieve the following specific objectives: To investigate the effectiveness of East Africa integration to the immigration policies in Tanzania. To examine the awareness of the EAC common market protocol among the people of East Africa. To establish the linkage between the Regional economic Integration and migration policies. The research design used in this study is a cross sectional research. The study involved mostly the use of open-ended questions for the primary data collection. The units of observation was department of EAC and that of Immigration with emphasis being the permit section, administration and border stations in Namanga . Findings of the research have shown that, Immigration Policy had undergone a lot of changes both in form and content leading to new, open, liberal and progressive less restrictive policies. Security experts hold the opinion that there were more security risks given the nature of the regional borders leading to the trans-border crimes such as human trafficking, smuggling in persons and goods including the infiltration of contraband goods, drugs and psychotropic substances. The study recommends a cross-border investment and foreign direct investment in Africa which require a harmonizing investment and labour laws among the regional economic communities. The East African Community should gradually relax visa and permits requirements, starting with the categories of people but with the main goal of including all community citizens. Migration policies need to be harmonized, improved and even new ones enacted; also there was a need to observe other aspects other than policies for labour migration such as skills development be enhanced