How naive are you ? It is a total exaggeration when they say that illegal immigrants are at risk if sent back to Libya.

I am no racist and I have no problem at all with black people who come to Malta legally but I have a MASSIVE problem with illegal immigrants forcing themselves into our country and bringing along with them all their social problems, crime and diseases.

[Daphne – You say you are not a racist but yours is the absolutely classic racist comment. Substitute ‘illegal immigrants’ for ‘Maltese’ and make the speaker British circa 1960: “I am no racist and I have no problem at all with coloured people who come to England legally, but I have a massive problem with Maltese who force themselves into our country, bringing along with them all their social problems, crime and diseases.” ]

Around 2003 I attended training at the Commissioner for Refugees with a view to conducting asylum interviews. Part of the training consisted in sitting in on actual interviews and on that day, all those interviewed by their own admission were economic migrants seeking a better life abroad.

Any talk of preserving our national identity is xenophobic nonsense. However, it is one thing to offer humanitarian assistance and rescue boat people and quite another to offer asylum. I doubt the Maltese economy can afford jobs to non-English speakers and stories of abuse of labour laws where migrants are concerned abound.

The Commission for Equality has brought to surface another issue faced by migrants: the reluctance of Maltese landlords to rent property to migrants. At face value it would seem xenophobic. However having been a landlady myself I have to admit I was wary of renting out for the simple reason that I’d heard stories of toilets being ripped out of premises or migrants living ten to a room causing considerable wear and tear to premises meant to accomodate an average sized family.

Besides equitable burden sharing, the solution lies in improving the living conditions in the countries of origin and in this respect I ask what is the EU doing to topple dictatorships? In 2013, the world’s wealth is still unequally distributed and asylum is only a temporary solution akin to giving a man a fish but never actually teaching him to fish. Unfortunately, the richer countries are in natural resources, the more likely they are to be ruled undemocratically and the West does not seem to care much beyond oil money.

Please see this. Please!

On the same subject is the Curia in Malta in sync with Pope Francis or have they lost the hymn sheet? Not a peep out of them all.

I’m shocked.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130705/local/veto.476720

I agree with your comment about Frank Xerri de Caro. He always was very carefull in walking the tightrope and never exposed himself so as to make similar comments on timesofmalta. The discussion around the Neptunes waterpolo pool must have been heated and animated.

If only they knew from which “pure stock” they are derived.

In his visit to Libya Joseph Muscat promised he will ask for help on illegal immigration to our friends of the European Union.

So let’s put everything into perspective; the Libyans shoot at escaping illegal immigrants who end up on a boat in our territorial waters, picked up and brought to Malta, and we’re threatening our friends in Europe that we will use our veto power if they won’t solve this problem.

Can one imagine Turkey with those hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, doing this when it becomes a member of the EU?Or for that matter, if Egyptians start fleeing to Cyprus because of the political unrest , what shall we do?

Anything we ‘get’ from Europe has to work both ways.