Malta to join International Organisation for Migration

The House of Representatives yesterday approved a motion for Malta to join the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The motion was moved by Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, who said that the organisation already had 98 member states, including neighbouring countries.

Among other functions, the organisation facilitated the process of repatriation of illegal migrants, as provided for in its statute. The first objective stated in the statute was to reach arrangements in order to facilitate this process and also to encourage states that were financially able to do so, to accept immigrants legally. A country would establish a quota for the number of immigrants so accepted.

In these last two years Malta had been facing a big problem with immigration, and would only stand to benefit from membership of the IOM. Libya was also considering joining. Once parliament approved membership, Malta would be eligible to attend the next meeting in November.

Dr Borg said that before 2002 the average number of people in detention in Malta at any one time had been between 60 and 70. Coincidentally, when the detention centre opened in 2002 the number had increased to 1,680 people in 12 months. This year to date the number of people in detention was between 400 and 500.

Up till 2000 there had been no law on refugees but Malta enacted the Refugees Act last year. Now, by law, when someone fled a country because of persecution or other reasons as stated in the law they were granted refugee status. They were entitled to relief, given documents for travel and provided with free education and health services.

People who were not by definition refugees, but who came from countries where there were problems, were afforded temporary assistance.

Detention had still to be considered the best solution to these situations.

A self-proclaimed refugee who had been refused refugee status was given the right to appeal that decision. One had to acknowledge that the process needed to be faster, but it had to be retained. One could not just grant refugee status to everyone, but had to move with moderation. Full rights were to be granted only to deserving cases.

Labour MP Anglu Farrugia said that the opposition agreed with the motion.

The main aim of the organisation, he said, was to assist those in crisis relating to immigration, seekers of asylum and refugee status and even illegal immigrants who would have fled their countries in fear.

He said Malta's detention policy was the correct one, but it had a lot of defects which needed attention.

How well was it reaching the standards which were international practice? There were defects and problems which sometimes put the country to shame.

Was it being ensured that women and children were being given the basic rights, rather than being put in the same category as problem immigrants?

The appeal judgments being received by some of the immigrants had already been referred to by Amnesty International, because a judgment should not be just a yes or no but should be meaningful and reflect the situation. One might not agree with a judgment given, but if the reasons for the decision were at least given, one would know what would have led the appeals board to reach that decision. One-liners were not acceptable, he said.

Dr Farrugia asked why, if someone wanted to return to his country, he should wait six months to be able to do so.

The EU was considering changing its policy to introduce new safeguards, directives and regulations. It wanted to define the concept of safe countries where it could send immigrants.

But the UNHCR director had remarked that this new EU policy, if introduced, would be a clear case of avoiding responsibilities. It was also something which would be introduced without the agreement of third countries.

Dr Farrugia said that the trafficking of human beings should be classified an international crime in the context of international law.

The IOM, he said, had a staff of 2,000, 80 of whom were in Geneva, and at least 76 governments were members of the organisation. What was Malta's part in the organisation to be? What fees would it have to pay?

He asked if there was a way of giving immigrants who were being processed the right to work or study while awaiting a decision. Was there no way to help these people? This was charity which involved governments, and one had to see that the country respected international legislation and presented itself as a kind country which was handling the situation well.

When Malta became a member of the IOM it should take an active part in the organisation's meetings. Malta's participation should also set an example to other countries.

Mr Joe Abela (MLP) said there were several detention centres on the island, to which voluntary organisations were allowed access. This was better than in other countries, where visits by voluntary organisations were prohibited.

The problem was that there were no personnel trained to assist the immigrants. Police officers and soldiers unfortunately were not trained to care for immigrants, such as women with children, but only to guard them. One could not blame the soldiers for this.

There were limited resources in these centres. For example, inmates were not provided with something as basic as a daily newspaper. Indeed, they had nothing to do all day. Lately a suggestion to involve three of these immigrants in the kitchen of the centres had been refused.

In Italy detention was limited to a maximum of two months. In Malta there were immigrants who had been in detention for nine months or even a year. Anyone would lose their sanity in these centres.

The persons responsible for these centres should be trained and willing to work with these people and be provided with staff who were prepared for this kind of work. Certain voluntary organisations were treated differently from others, and this was wrong.

Mr Abela said that as regards the appeals board, the law provided that a refugee on appeal had a right to legal aid. To date such requests had always been refused. Immigrants were only represented by lawyers from the voluntary organisations, if at all.

The appellant would submit the reasons why his appeal should be upheld. In one case in particular, to an appeal of 15 pages the board had replied with one simple sentence that the appeal had been refused. This was unacceptable. The decision had been taken without even hearing the appellant.

One had to clarify that the number of illegal immigrants in Malta's detention centres in 2002 had never been 1,680 at any one point, but the figure applied to the whole year. The numbers mentioned by the minister for this year showed a drastic reduction, but this did not mean that the problem had been solved. It was important to remember that most of these people neither wanted to stay in Malta nor had the intention of coming here in the first place.

The Maltese people needed to be educated not to look at illegal immigrants as criminals. While the minister was to be complimented on what had been done, one had to re-evaluate the way these people were being treated in Malta. In certain instances they were being treated worse than criminals detained in prison, concluded Mr Abela.

Winding up, Dr Borg said the country was now much better than it was 15 years ago, when the media used not to distinguish between refugees and illegal immigrants. There was now at least a distinction in favour of those who, in spite of entering the country illegally, had obtained refugee status.

He did not agree that more refugees had come in 2002 because more rights had been given to refugees in 2001.

Dr Borg said there was nothing wrong in propagating the policy that Malta only recognised genuine cases. He did not agree with Mr Farrugia that the new policy being proposed by the EU was cruel to immigrants. The EU was the most liberal continent with refugees and legal and sometimes even illegal immigrants.

The army and the police, he said, had shouldered an enormous burden to the detriment of their other duties. At certain times, police stations had had to be closed for the detention centres to be manned. The situation was now a bit better, and even the immigrants currently being detained at police headquarters were being moved to other centres. But if there was another emergency the headquarters, which had never been intended as a detention centre, would have to be used again.

Dr Borg said the commissioner for refugees sometimes spent 20 hours with one person, hence the time it took for applications for refugee status to be completed.

It was true that some of these people were genuinely refugees and he was worried that they were spending a long time in detention. But this, he said, was not as long as before, when Malta did not have a commissioner and applications for refugee status had to be considered in Rome.

The minister said the law offered a possibility that if it was suspected that one's application for an appeal was unfounded, a meeting of the members of the board would be called and if they agreed it was unfounded the appeal would not be heard. This procedure had not yet been used.

He thanked Mr Abela for the information he had given on legal aid, and said he would look into it because the law gave one the right to legal aid in the appeal stage.

The minister pointed out that if one lost the appeal and initiated a Constitutional case, one could not then complain of remaining in detention because the law laid down that illegal immigrants had to be kept in detention.

On the Eritreans who had been repatriated, he said no proof had been brought to show that these had been killed, as some had said.

The motion was then approved unanimously.