African immigrants unlikely to integrate

The editorial Mutual Benefits of Migrants Contribution (September 21) suggests that the undocumented Africans arriving in Malta are now welcome or should be welcomed because the General Workers’ Union believes they are making a positive contribution to Maltese society.

If that is going to become official policy in Malta, perhaps it is time to establish a processing centre similar to the Ellis Island facility that processed nearly 12 million immigrants to the US between 1890 and 1930.

In this facility, those who had first- and second-class tickets were usually given a cursory inspection aboard ship on the assumption that if they could afford a first- or second-class ticket, they were in reasonably good health and unlikely to become a public charge.

Those who travelled “steerage”, or third class, were subject to an inspection process and, in the heyday of this immigrant influx to the US, up to 2,000 per month were denied entry for health or legal reasons and returned to Europe.

The boat people coming to Malta would, according to this scenario, probably qualify as tra­­vell­ing steerage and be subjected to a similar medical and legal inspection process, before being given citizenship in Malta or in the UK and US via their relocation programmes.

However, it is noteworthy to mention that the “boat people” who immigrated to the US via Ellis Island were Europeans who joined and became assimilated into a European-based culture. The Africans now coming to Malta have totally different orientations and, if they follow the example of earlier African influxes into Europe, even those “processed and approved” will, rather than become assimilated into Malta’s European way of life, become the starting point of an ever-growing African-oriented settlement.