Government rejects MLP's criticism over migration

The opposition's strategy of attacking the government's way of addressing the problem of illegal immigration was incorrect, the Home Affairs Ministry said yesterday.

The ministry said the opposition itself had admitted a number of times that the line of action that the government was following was the right one and should be continued.

The ministry was replying to a call by the Labour Party for the government to hold a national conference to trash out the issue of illegal migration. Labour leader Alfred Sant has described the government's policy as ineffective and inefficient.

"The opposition leader's words are simply another exercise in public relations against all sense and logic," the ministry said. It accused Dr Sant of on one hand saying that the government was not controlling the influx of illegal immigrants, while on the other admitting there were certain factors which nobody had control over.

"The problem of illegal migration should be faced and fought with a sense of solidarity and commitment and not through obstacles," it said.

In a counter statement, the Labour Party spokesman for Home Affairs, Gavin Gulia, argued that Dr Borg wanted to go about things his way as could be seen from the fact that he shot down the initiative by the MLP towards a national effort in the search for concrete solutions to the problem of illegal immigration.

Dr Gulia pointed out that Dr Borg had in his statement failed even to make a passing mention of the MLP's call for a national conference on this theme.

The Labour spokesman claimed that he had always kept abreast of the government's policy that detention was a deterrent.

Detention had not turned out to be a deterrent at all so much so that illegal immigrants were still regularly reaching these shores, he added.

This new reality required a fresh manner in which one ought to look at the problem, Dr Gulia said.