Irregular immigration should be taken out of the military’s hands and be run by a civilian-run agency, a review of Malta’s detention policy had recommended two years ago, following the death of two migrants in custody.

The National Detention Policy review was concluded in October 2012. However, it remained unpublished and though it had started being implemented, the process got stuck after the March 2013 general election when the Labour Party was elected to government.

The main aim of the report’s recommendations, which are being published for the first time in The Sunday Times of Malta today, is to “civilianise” the care of migrants, both in closed and open centres.

The document, penned by the former head of the Strategic Policy Secretariat, Mikela Fenech Pace, recommends keeping the mandatory detention policy but says the maximum incarceration period should be brought down from 18 months to one year.

However, it also puts in stark relief the cost of detention. According to a conservative costing exercise made in 2012, each migrant in detention costs almost €29 a day, as opposed to €7 for those in open centres.

Immigration in general, cost the country some €17.3 million during that year.

Specifically, the review recommends the establishment of a National Agency for Immigration, which would bring all the bodies dealing with migrants (closed centres, open centres, refugee commission and social agencies) under one roof and one direction.

Police and soldiers would no longer have anything to do with the care of immigrants

The new agency, which would require a boost of human resources, would likely be headquartered at the Safi barracks, which, the review recommended, should be restructured in a multi-million, EU-financed project, into a dedicated complex with both closed and open centre for migrants.

This means the Armed Forces of Malta, which currently also operate from Safi, would need to vacate the premises and be given the Ħal Far Lyster barracks (which would no longer house the detention centre) in exchange.

Day-to-day management of the migrants would go to specially-trained professionals, more akin to social workers

More significantly, neither soldiers nor the police would have anything to do with the care for migrants in detention anymore. They would maintain a role in securing the perimeter of the closed centres but the day-to-day management of the migrants would go to specially-trained professionals, whose focus would be more akin to that of a social worker than prison warder.

Once in detention, migrants should be split in two groups; those who are likely to be granted humanitarian protection and those who are not. The first group would get activities oriented towards integration, while the focus with the second group would be on repatriation.

People could be switched from one group to the other, depending on how their application goes, however, the initial separation is meant to avoid frustration among migrants not likely to be eligible for protection.

Very often, protests used to erupt because some migrant groups would not understand why other migrants leave detention centres earlier. To this effect, the report recommends an enhanced system of communication, through which, individuals in detention would be informed constantly of the status of their detention and request for protection.

The publication of the report today comes after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat last week released a 2012 inquiry report by retired judge Geoffrey Valencia into the death of 32-year-old Malian, Mamadou Kamara, at the hands of two detention service officials, who now face murder charges.

Both the Valencia inquiry and the detention policy review had been commissioned as a response to Mr Kamara’s death by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, who was responsible for the sector towards the end of the previous legislature, following the forced resignation of home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici.

The Valencia inquiry went beyond the confines of Mr Kamara’s death and dug into that of 29-year-old Ifeanyi Nwokoye a year earlier.

The young Nigerian had also died in detention in suspect circumstances and two soldiers and a detention service official were charged with his involuntary homicide.

The former head of the detention service, Brian Gatt, told the inquiry he had wanted to take disciplinary action and even dismiss the officers involved in the Nigerian’s death but Dr Mifsud Bonnici told him not to do so, since police investigations were still under way. Dr Mifsud Bonnici denied the claim last week.

However, the inquiry laid bare the extent of the problems in detention, including a claim by Lt Col Gatt that being assigned to work with migrants was considered a punishment in the army and that therefore officers working there were “the worst of the worst”.

In their response to the publication of the inquiry, NGOs working in the sector were critical of both administrations, condemning “every single person who read this report, failed to act and chose to remain silent” since it was finalised in December 2012.

The detention policy review itself acknowledges that many of the recommendations are not novel. The main recommendation, to have immigration dealt with by a single, civilian-run agency dates back to a Cabinet memo of October 7, 2009.

Despite the general inertia, independent sources in the field say considerable improvements were made over the years even though serious problems remain with conditions in detention centres.

For instance, the work of boards which process appeals claims by migrants who have had their asylum claim rejected has been beefed up over the past year or so.

Aided by dwindling numbers of migrants landing in Malta, as a result of the Italian Mare Nostrum search and rescue mission, in practice migrants are spending less time in the detention than they used to, with many being transferred to open centres after three to four months.