Who’s really in a ‘state of illegality here’

Listen to some people argue, and you’d think the definition of ‘illegality’ depended on their own personal assumptions, rather than any actual infringement of any actual law. So if they are personally convinced that something (or, bizarrely, someone) is ‘illegal’... hey presto! The thing or person in question suddenly becomes ‘illegal’... not because a crime has been committed, but merely because the vast majority here doesn’t know what the word really means.

The most conspicuous example concerns ‘illegal immigration’... and therefore, by extension, ‘illegal immigrants’. The term broadly refers to anyone who enters a country without proper authorisation or documentation, usually through non-mainstream channels, for any reason whatsoever. Yet in Malta over the past 15-odd years, it has increasingly come to refer almost exclusively to sub-Saharan Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean by boat... often ending up here purely by accident.

Oddly enough, this category accounts for only a fraction of all the people who enter Malta irregularly each year. Most non-EU foreigners who come to Malta under dubious circumstances will not necessarily be African; nor will they have come here by boat or through any other form of human smuggling networks. They could just as easily fly here (with a perfectly valid airline ticket) from a former Soviet Republic such as Georgia or Ukraine; or from Turkey, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan all the way to the Far East.

Yet ask anyone for a description of an ‘illegal immigrant’, and it will invariably be: ‘black man on a boat’.

It is a recent misconception, however. In the 1990s, Malta was inundated by migrants from former Yugoslavian nations such as Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some applied for and received humanitarian protection. Others were rejected, and some were deported. But many stayed; and though it took them 20 years or more, some ended up as fully-fledged Maltese citizens (without, I might add, buying their passports for €1 million).

I don’t recall any of them ever being described as ‘illegal immigrants’, or spending any time in detention. Nor do I hear anyone complaining about their presence in Malta all these years later. Why not, I wonder? Why do the people who aggressively insist on the instant deportation of all black Africans, not insist on the same yardstick being applied to ALL people who came here by unorthodox, non-legal means... no matter how long ago?

To me the answer is fairly obvious. Malta is a much better place as a result of this infusion of Balkan immigrants 30 years ago. These people introduced a sorely-needed cultural variant to the local mix: some have made extraordinary contributions to Malta’s cultural milieu, that in other countries might earn them the equivalent of an OBE. Our entire arts scene (and I reckon sports, too) would be infinitely poorer had they never come here at all; or had we deported them all as unceremoniously as we now threaten to deport Africans.

Even in other less deserving cases, we stop short of demanding instant deportation. Another category of migrant that (curiously) is never labelled ‘illegal’ includes hundreds of (mostly Eastern European) strippers and prostitutes, who now work in dozens of sex clubs dotted all over Paceville and elsewhere. Leaving aside those from other EU member states, and who therefore enjoy freedom of movement within the EU... how did the others come to Malta in the first place? How did they acquire permits to live and work here? More to the point: why does nobody ever ask these questions, in a country which only ever talks about ‘immigration’ in terms of a crisis or threat?

Let’s see if we can work this one out for ourselves. When Africans come here and work precariously on construction sites and in garbage collection – to name but two local industries that would probably cease to exist altogether, without a steady supply of cheap foreign labour – they are deemed a threat to national security, and are often arrested as criminals. But when entire truckloads of foreign prostitutes are imported here in bulk to work in unofficial bordellos called ‘gentlemen’s clubs’... that’s absolutely fine. We even pretend they don’t exist at all, so as not to disrupt an applecart that is making a few people quite a lot of money.

As far as I can see, the last police raid on a Paceville bordello was carried out at a time when the establishment wasn’t even open for business. Here is a quote from the actual news report a couple of months ago: “Police raided the club but did not find any evidence of illegal sexual activities, since at the time the premises were closed.”

My, my. How’s that for our national commitment to tackle the scourge of illegal immigration, huh? Can you imagine the reaction if the police decided to raid an establishment illegally employing Africans... at a time when they knew they wouldn’t find any illegal workers to arrest?

Sadly, the naked truth of the matter is that we only apply the ‘illegal immigrant’ label to foreigners who are visibly different from us at a glance. ‘Illegality’, it seems, is all about the colour of one’s skin, and has nothing at all to do with the legality of one’s actions. This becomes particularly obvious when we examine the most recent batch of ‘illegal immigrants’, and how they are being treated as I write.

Earlier this month, 32 asylum seekers from Mali – some of whom have been living and working here legally for years – were summarily arrested and detained when they went in person to a police station to have their work permits renewed... only to find themselves handcuffed and taken back into detention. The same fate now awaits all current ‘THP-n’ holders – including at least one Eritrean family with small children – who have already been told they will be arrested and deported when their permit expires next year.

So far, no local paper or media outlet has bothered reporting the actual situation those Malian asylum seekers were fleeing between 2006 and 2009. This excerpt from GlobalSeciruty.com should give a rough indication:

“Northern Mali experiences periodic violence involving bandits, smugglers, paramilitary forces, ethnic violence, and Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Malian government has difficulty in imposing order in distant northern regions where local groups do not hesitate to use guns and fast 4x4s to try to impose their position [...]

“On August 26-27, 2007, Tuareg dissidents attacked and kidnapped civilian and military convoys near the Mali-Niger border. On August 30, 2007, a truck transporting civilians from Algeria to Tinzawaten, Mali, hit a landmine, killing at least 14 people [...]

“In 2008 attacks by groups of armed Tuaregs [...] injured civilians and displaced thousands of persons. In April 2008 local and international aid organizations estimated that there were 3,250 [internally displaced persons] in Tinzawaten, 800 in In-Bulal, 3,500 near Aguelhok, and more than 3,000 near Kidal.”

People fleeing such situations do not normally enjoy the luxury of booking flights and hotels in advance. This much is recognised by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (aka The Geneva Convention), which explicitly exempts such cases from the usual laws governing unlawful entry into another country.

Article 31 of the treaty provides as follows: “1. The contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”

The same convention also compels Malta to provide channels through which these people can apply for refugee status, or – failing that – other forms of humanitarian protection. The 32 asylum seekers in question went through this process; and even if they were denied refugee status, they were allowed to live here, legally work and pay taxes.

This gives rise to two considerations. One, it is illegal to apply immigration laws to this category of irregular migrant. Far from being in a state of illegality themselves, those people are actually the victims of a crime perpetrated by the State: which is openly defying the Geneva Convention.

Moreover, the same convention also specifies what should happen in the case of failed applicants. They should be given time to arrange to leave the country on their own initiative; only once they were given this opportunity and refused it, can they be arrested for illegal presence in Malta.

This is not what happened. Instead, they were duped into thinking their permits were going to be renewed... then promptly arrested, without being given the opportunity to leave of their own accord as required by law.

At this point, there is more than just the Geneva Convention to condemn the illegal actions of the Maltese government. Arbitrary arrest and detention are also violations of the UN Charter of Human Rights. There are no two ways about this: those people were arbitrarily arrested and detained, not on the basis of anything they did... but simply because of who they are.

That is a flagrant human rights violation in itself, and also a textbook example of what constitutes a ‘crime against humanity’ according to international law.

So I’d like to end this with a small question for our Prime Minister. Who is really in a state of illegality here, Dr Muscat? A bunch of Africans who have done nothing wrong? Or you and your government, who have acted as though Malta was not signatory to either the Geneva Convention or the Universal Charter of Human Rights?