The News / L-Aħbarijiet
I was watching the Maltese news today. I find it easier than the other shows, because with the news you sort of expect what they are going to say (particularly if you cheat and you already watched the English news). Maltese TV can be a bit quaint, however. The studios are not so high tech, and every now and then there are technical glitches. To be fair, however, the BBC has glitches all the time as well.
Illegal immigration is a big topic here these days. Boatloads of immigrants (boatloads is a euphemism, as sometimes they are rafts or boats that barely float) come across the Mediterranean every day. Spain’s Canary Islands, southern Italy and Malta bear the brunt because of their proximity to the North African coast. In Malta the situation is getting particularly problematic. There simply are not enough facilities to house people. Keep in mind that the entire country is twice the size of Washington, DC. And the boatloads keep coming.
They cannot simply send them back. Many of these people are genuine refugees, fleeing persecution. And so, they are placed in detention centers for several months while their cases are processed. Geunine refugees are entitled to asylum under international law, while those seeking a better life for economic of other reasons will likely be deported. Under European Union law, the country where an illegal migrant arrives must be the one that processes his or her asylum application. And there lies the rub: most of the people arriving in Malta were aiming for the Italian coast. Most do not even know Malta exists, or the people arranging their clandestine journey told them they had reached Italy. So they do not want to be in Malta, stuck in a detention center for months. And the Maltese do not really want this problem in their hands. So everyone is unhappy.
Malta keeps appealing for help from the EU. After all, it is because Malta joined the EU that this problem has been exacerbated. Spain and Italy are clamoring for help too, but to put it simply, they have more room. Tiny Malta just cannot cope any more. This is, unfortunately, leading to some anti-immigrant rhetoric. It has not yet reached terrible proportions, but I see it heading that way. It is the same anywhere with large scale immigration… fear of being invaded, fear of “they” taking “our” jobs, and inevitably racist profiling.
I do not know what the solution is. But the status quo is not sustainable.
