Illegal immigrants and legal emigrants

It distresses me to think that the analogy I attempted in the course of the "debate" on Bondiplus (TVM, February 9) between illegal immigrants and the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties has been understood as a categorisation of the latter as a bunch of outlaws! Nothing can be further from the truth!

Nevertheless I thank Mr Joseph Sammut, ACIOB, PMP (The Sunday Times, February 13) for having highlighted the matter and for thereby giving me this opportunity to clarify and perhaps amplify further on what I really intended to put across during the programme.

First of all the clarification: the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties were not, and could never have been, illegal immigrants insofar as they were equipped with the necessary identification documents and entry permits. The latter are illegal insofar as they are not in possession of such documentation and permits, subject of course to their being eligible for political asylum, in which case a different set of rules would apply. I think there should be no contention about this.

Secondly, the amplification: the analogy between the two categories (and the point I intended to make during the programme) relates to the assimilation or integration argument. As I recall (and as far as I could gather from the "discussion" during the programme), it is the assimilation/integration argument (and not the illegality as such) which constitutes the pre-eminent objection of the radical right (presumably including Jean Govè, who was another guest on Bondiplus) to illegal immigration. Exponents of this philosophy have a deep-rooted belief that assimilation of immigrants is impossible.

My response to this is that migration between countries or continents has always been a sensitive issue. Historical records suggest that migrants - including the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties - were always perceived as outsiders by their hosts. They looked different and they had different cultures. Anti-immigrant sentiment was common.

Even in Europe itself, where many of today's EU citizens can trace themselves back to these migrations over the centuries, when they first arrived in their new host states, they seemed overwhelmingly alien to the inhabitants. So even Europeans themselves, let alone Americans and Australians, were equally negative about those very same migrants from other European countries, and who today are considered insiders.

I have no doubt that this antiimmigrant sentiment was shared to some degree by the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties and this despite their legal status. And this is where I believe the experiences of illegal immigrants and the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties converge: they were both considered as outsiders, different and impossible to assimilate and integrate in the mainstream of the civic and political community. In a nutshell, they were both victims of an anti-immigrant sentiment. To my mind, this is where the analogy between the two categories of migrants lies.

The good news is that many generations later and after a lot of hard work together with political will and innovation, newcomers were incorporated. Assimilation of outsiders (legal ones of course) has always been and will remain a challenge.

Yet every big immigration phase pushed Europe and the other continents to invent legal instruments to handle the matter and come up with formal rules for including outsiders. The belief that assimilation of immigrants is impossible was thus crushed. I am sure that the Maltese emigrants of the Fifties would be prepared to vouch for that today.

My point? The problem of illegal immigration is principally a purely legal one. Today public debate and the radical right seem to want to shift the focus of the problem to one based on the impossibility of assimilation or the bad vibes of multiculturalism.

My appeal in this respect is that we should treat the problem of illegal immigration for what it is - principally, one related to law and order, and therefore devise solutions best-suited for the nature of the problem. Once the legal issues are dealt with in ways which become a democratic and civilised state like Malta, then let us sort out the other issues related to assimilation or multiculturalism.

And in so doing, let us not neglect the history of hard civic, political and legal work already carried out over the centuries in Europe and the other continents - and which so many of our own citizens abroad are benefiting from today.