"Asylum Seekers" Protest in Malta

A truly extraordinary article appeared in yesterday's Times of Malta:

Around 70 Sudanese migrants living in Malta turned up at the offices of the UN Refugee Agency this morning to protest against the slow process of resettlement to other EU countries.

Farouk Bebekir, 28, said the government seemed to prefer resettling other East Africans to keep Sudanese in Malta because they are hard-working, adaptable and can communicate in Maltese.

“But there is no future here,” he said, pointing out that permanent work was difficult to find and bills were constantly increasing.

“We have been here six years and we don’t get any help. Others have gone to Europe to become doctors and we are still here, struggling to pay water and electricity bills.”

Good lord - lucky Malta - but poor old everyone else, missing out on the this particular chunk of enrichment. Apparently, every semi-literate Third World chancer who gets out of Malta goes on to become a doctor!

They must have quite an education system there. Obviously, an alternative view is that it is beneath contempt for any self-respecting newspaper to repeat this utter propagandistic drivel verbatim.

I must say I have some sympathy for Farouk; just look at what he's missing out on:

He added that refugees who are resettled to other EU countries can get a passport to travel and can even bring over their families to live with them and build a future together. But in Malta, they cannot travel freely and have not seen their family members in six years.

“If the government wants to keep us here, the conditions must improve. We need to be given help to find good work and job training. We need to get benefits Maltese employees get and we need to be able to travel.”

He added that if they could not be resettled and the situation in Malta did not improve, they would probably prefer to go back to Darfur and die there.

“At least we will die in our country with our friends and family not here alone, with nothing.”

As you can see, the benefits - for the immigrants - are innumerable. I'm not quite so sure what the rest of us are getting out of it, but then that's hardly new.

I particularly enjoyed the "if the government wants to keep us here..." line - I was rather under the impression that they all just turned up illegally and the government and people of Malta didn't have too much say in the matter. However the likes of Farouk may like to delude himself, I highly doubt engraved invitations were sent out.

Obviously, it would never have occurred to Farouk and the countless others that perhaps they should have stayed and strived to improve their own country; no, far better to travel to someone else's and then throw petulant fits because you haven't been elevated to the status you think you deserve or offered a free ride to an even more lucrative destination.

The insanity continues, however:

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the UNHCR, Fabrizio Ellul, explained that the process for resettlement took long but the agency did not discriminate between nationals of different countries.

“Twenty per cent of Sudanese have been resettled,” he said, adding that this was not a low figure compared to other nationalities.

He stressed, however, that resettlement was not a right and if countries offered to take migrants from Malta the decision of who to take was theirs.

Countries generally take vulnerable migrants who find difficulty integrating.

The UNHCR spokesman added that integration programmes needed to be improved for people who had to stay in Malta at least until they are resettled.

A meeting was held this morning between Sudanese representatives and the UNHCR while another one is scheduled for Friday.

Hmm. Nice work if you can get it; how about we just save everyone the bother and improve repatriation programmes instead?

That way, knowing they would be thwarted at every turn by the proper authorities, the illegal immigrants would largely stop coming in the first place.

Just a thought - might leave Fabrizio out of a job though.

Somali Bites Policeman in Malta

From The Times of Malta:

A Somali immigrant was this morning remanded in custody after pleading not guilty to seriously injuring a policeman while queuing for his monthly allowance.

Farhan Ainab Mohamud, 30, a resident at the Hanger Open Centre in Hal Far allegedly jumped the queue and PC Adrian Zahra asked him to return to the line. He allegedly refused and a scuffle broke out between the two men.

During the fight, the Somali allegedly bit Mr Zahra’s finger, fracturing it in the process.

Many comments on the article indicate just what a problem illegal immigration has become for Malta; they also observe the usual pattern, noting that if the policeman had retaliated in any way, he would have been fired.

Italy Takes in Stranded Illegal Immigrants

'Fortress Europe's' evil, racist immigration policy swung into action again yesterday as Italy brought 140 stranded illegals from Africa to Sicily.

This ended a 4 day stand off with the government of Malta over who bears responsibility for giving these people exactly what they want and towing them to EU territory.

Both Malta and the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa are overwhelmed with illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East who arrive by sea in decrepit vessels and often have to be rescued.

The BBC has more:

On Monday morning, the first group of about 30 migrants were escorted off the MV Pinar at Porto Empedocle in southern Sicily and put onto buses for processing.

A group of 20 migrants with health problems were evacuated to Lampedusa on Sunday. The remaining refugees were to be brought ashore later on Monday.

Italy's foreign ministry said it had agreed to take them in after the intervention of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who spoke with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Maltese counterpart, Lawrence Gonzi.

The decision was made "exclusively in consideration of the painful humanitarian emergency aboard the cargo ship" and Italy's acceptance of the migrants "must not in any way be understood as a precedent nor as a recognition of Malta's reasons" for refusing them, the ministry said in a statement.

"Malta should have taken them in," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told state television.

"[Its] government has not complied with a European request from Commission President Barroso to respect the rules of search and rescue at sea."

What always amazes me most about a situation like this is two-fold; firstly that so many are convinced we have an overly strict, unfair 'border regime', and secondly that when these people are caught they are given exactly what they want - access to Europe.

If they were taken straight back to Africa each time they were caught with no arguments, then maybe, just maybe, the tide would be stemmed when it began to emerge that we were actually serious.

But no. They know as well as I do that once here the chances of being returned are absolutely minute. They can spend years being 'processed', and even if held in detention centres they are being looked after by the taxpayer.

All legal bills from the countless appeals are again charged to the taxpayer. Obviously word gets back to friends and family - Europe is a rich land where you will be paid and have a lifestyle beyond your wildest dreams - all for nothing.

It's easy to wax lyrical about these immigrants and their rights, and I'm not pretending there are easy answers; but what about the rights of Italians and Maltese not to have their territory overwhelmed with Third World people, behaviour and customs? What about the future of their children?

It seems to me that our current immigration policies reward failure. We reward the failure of Third World governments by simply taking their surplus populations to ease the pressure in failed societies - whilst all the time paying them 'aid' so their populations can burgeon further and the cycle can repeat itself.

It can't go on indefinitely, though; something has to change. It would seem that we have to sit down and come up with an effective policy, no matter how harsh it initially seems - the governments of Africa have made it quite clear they don't intend to solve these problems, and in all honesty are probably happy with the status quo as long as we are naive enough to maintain it.