The Children’s Commissioner has come out against the government’s decision not to renew the temporary humanitarian protection for migrants who have been living in Malta for years, saying that such a measure should not be retroactive.
“Migrants who have integrated in society should be given a more permanent and defined status, and in the case of families with children this should include citizenship,” Commissioner Pauline Miceli said in a statement.
“Migrant children could never be expected to integrate with the prospect of deportation hanging above their head,” she added.
Her criticism was issued in the wake of the Home Affairs Ministry’s decision to review the system adopted in 2010 whereby asylum seekers who did not qualify for protection but could not be repatriated were awarded this temporary status.
Subsequently, a group of around 30 migrants, some of whom had been living in Malta for more than a decade, were rounded up pending a final decision on their fate.
However, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela insisted that the government had no plans to deport children. The clarification was made during a joint news conference in Valletta with Austrian Home Affairs Minister Wolfgang Sobotka. The latter was paying a visit ahead of Malta’s forthcoming EU presidency, which starts on January 1.
For families with children, a more permanent, defined status should include citizenship
Concerns over possible deportations of migrant children were fuelled in the wake of a Malta Today story which claimed that a married couple who have been in Malta for 11 years, together with their two children aged eight and seven years, would be deported to Eritrea once their temporary protection expired in August next year. However, Mr Abela vehemently denied the claim
“This is a false story. Twenty-four Mali nationals are waiting to be interviewed regarding deportation by a Mali delegation. We have to wait first and foremost for the outcome of this delegation…
“I am also National Security Minister, and people also care about security.”
As for the reasons behind the decision to stop renewing the humanitarian protection status, Mr Abela said that the Refugee Commissioner’s role should not be to give “failed” asylum seekers some sort of alternative.
Moreover, Mr Abela denied that government’s decision smacked of populism.
“Were that the case, we would not have participated in the relocation of migrants from Italy and Greece. We have already brought to Malta more than 53 per cent of our agreed figures,” he said.
Earlier, the Austrian Home Affairs Minister expressed his support for Malta’s plan to engage with North African countries such as Tunisia in order to address the migration crisis. As for EU plans for a common coordinated approach on this issue, he said that the Dublin regulations reform should be treated separately.
This was arguably the most controversial of all seven proposals floated by the European Commission, he added.
Commenting on Austria’s stance on border security, he said that as long as the EU’s external borders were not secure, it had to secure internal borders in line with Article 29 of the EU Treaty.