For the first time, clandestine immigrants trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa have been stopped and returned to Tripoli by the Italian police forces. A total of 227 migrants were denied access to the island following negotiations between the Libyan and Italian authorities. This action is believed by Italian Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, to mark a turning-point and a historic result in the fight against illegal immigration. Such a solution, which foresees the repatriation of illegal immigrants to their point of departure, regardless of whose waters they are found in, will also resolve the diplomatic row between Italy and Malta that started over this matter.
However, Médecins Sans Frontières has stated that forced repatriations constitute an illegal act that has never been sanctioned by Italian or international legislation. A spokesman from MSF Italia has said that in May 2005 the European Court of Human Rights condemned repatriations carried out by the Italian government as they were deemed detrimental to immigrants’ rights to seek asylum, “Sending people away from Italy without identifying them or granting them access, for those having the right, is illegal behaviour that contravenes asylum procedures as well as national and international legislation.”
According to the Interior Ministry, 37,000 clandestine migrants arrived on Italian shores in 2008; a 75% increase from 2007. Whilst forced repatriations may break asylum laws, they represent the only effective and proportional method to protect Europe from illegal immigration and uphold Italian and Maltese national security.
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I have read some persuasive opinions claiming that the real driver of illegal immigration it Europe is not the need of immigrants to get out of Africa (the push) but the European need for cheap labour (the pull). European women have found that it is more profitable to spend their time doing work in their profession and paying a domestic than to do unpaid domestic work themselves. The agriculture industry also can't get Europeans to pick fruit and the construction industry needs workers too. If these low skilled and low wage (by European standards) jobs were not there the insentive for people to pay to get into Europe would vanish. So I recommend banning women from the work place and closing down labour intensive industries like agriculture and construction. That will end the pull. Since most illegals come in legally and overstay (the boat people are dramatic but not all that representative) the beat control of such immigration is to make Europe not worth coming to.
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