“Suicidal immigration policy” takes its toll in Greece

Article: A Real Greek Tragedy: Repeated Amnesties Fail There Too

Source: Vdare.com

Published Date: October 21, 2008

Excerpt:

But in the last few years the numbers of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia are also rising. They come either through the eastern borders with Turkey or cross the Mediterranean Sea in small boats (usually from Egypt). According to another estimate by the National Intelligence Service (the Greek Secret Service) the total number of immigrants in Greece (both regularized and illegal) could be as high as 2,500,000 people!

Taking into account that Greece’s total population is about 11,000,000 then, officially, non-Greek immigrants make-up 8.2% of the country’s total population. In US terms, this would be the equivalent of receiving a population of 17,000,000 ex post facto regularized immigrants (through amnesty bills) and 8,200,000 illegal immigrants in the last 18 years.

The Greek governments made a catastrophic mistake in starting the dominoes of successive regularizations falling. This policy sent out the wrong message. It gave the impression that Greece is soft touch and if someone somehow makes it into the country they will get a chance of regularization sooner or later.

Moreover, Greek governments, by offering regularization, essentially rewarded the breach of the law both by illegal immigrants (illegal entry/stay) and by those who employed them (hire of illegal labor).

Ironically, the EU’s official position is that the decision to take in immigrants lies solely within each Member-State. Furthermore, the EU is officially firmly against large-scale regularizations and favors the repatriation of illegal immigrants.

Specifically, the EU points out that (1): “Within the context of a managed immigration policy the only coherent approach to dealing with illegal residents is to ensure that they return to their country of origin” (p.19). The EU also emphasizes that “wide-scale regularization measures…aare not…seen to have a long-term effect in reducing the levels of illegal migrants, instead they may serve as an additional pull factor for illegal migrants…[R]egularizations should not be considered as a way of managing migration flows as in reality they often appear as a negative consequence of migration policy in other areas” (p.17). [Commission of the European Communities, Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Study on the links between legal and illegal migration, Brussels, 4.6.2004 COM(2004) 412 final PDF | HTML]

As a result of this suicidal “immigration policy”, illegal immigration to Greece has exploded in recent years. Not surprisingly, asylum applications have surged too.

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