Parliamentary debate on illegal immigration

The report on the debate on illegal immigration in the House of Representatives (Malta Faces Problems With Children Of Illegal Immigrants, June 10) confirms that the two parties represented in Parliament are determined to deal with this serious national problem in a bipartisan spirit. That is welcome. The debate was also rich in ideas and focused on the real issues.

George Vella was right in saying that Malta had to state how many illegal immigrants it could take. Essentially this is a matter of numbers. If only a hundred illegal immigrants arrived every year nobody would be concerned and we would take them in our stride.

The problem has turned into a crisis because arrivals have reached 1,700 or 1,800 a year and there is no sign of any respite. Recently (The Malta Independent on Sunday, June 8), Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was quoted as telling Italian journalists that this has become an invasion. That is exactly how many of us feel about it. The parliamentary debate also brought out the three solutions to the problem. The first is border control.

Unfortunately, we are all disappointed that Frontex has not lived up to its mission of defending the southernmost borders of the European Union from illegal entry by third country nationals. We expect more and better from it.

The second is repatriation. Admittedly, it is difficult to return illegal aliens if they destroy their documents and their countries refuse to issue new ones. But the EU has not yet shown enough determination, though the coming into effect of the return directive may improve matters.

The third is burden sharing. We are right in calling for solidarity from our EU partners but this is somewhat naïve. Few will volunteer to come and carry a part of our burden; so our priority should be to ensure that the burden is as small as possible. In other words, in times of crisis self-help is the ultimate solution.