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by Zox » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:23 pm
Immigration: we can’t have our cake and eat it
BARELY a week goes by without the immigration department being accused of arbitrary behaviour in summary deportations of foreign nationals. Indeed, there is little doubt that the cases that come to our attention are the tip of the iceberg, involving people with friends or relatives confident enough to pick up the phone to report their plight to the Ombudswoman or the media.
Many of the cases highlighted on these pages in recent months have involved deportations of third country nationals married to EU or even Cypriot citizens, or of foreigners thrown out of the country despite having legally been in residence for more than five years – the threshold defined by the European Union for automatic access to permanent residency.
How many more cases there must be, where deportees do not have an articulate local to speak up on their behalf, or where, while their deportations might be justified, due procedures have been ignored and their basic rights trampled in the process?
There is no doubt that the authorities are swamped under the weight of applications. Immigration to the island has spiralled in the past few years, to the point where Cyprus now has the highest concentration of asylum seekers per capita in the EU.
Understaffed and with little time or inclination for the niceties of EU law, it is hardly surprising that the officers are offhand in their treatment of applicants.
Rather, it is to their political masters that we should look for answers. In any other country in Europe, immigration would be a top issue. In Cyprus there isn’t even the hint of a debate. And yet there should be: not the kind of strident debate driven by the far right, but a rational discussion of our immigration needs.
Cyprus needs foreign labour: our economy would come to a standstill without it. And so far we have tried to have our cake and eat it, to bring workers in without having to consider the social repercussions. For a while, our system of high turnover immigration has worked, but it is beginning to show the strain, and the EU’s directive on residency rights has pointed the spotlight on its shortcomings. The government’s answer is a wave of deportations – some legitimate, others not – but this is a short-term answer that has to stop.
Migrants have rights. Just as generations of Cypriots built new lives in England, Australia or America, so Serbs, Ukrainians, Syrians or Sri Lankans legally working here for more than five years should have the right to build a new life in Cyprus.
Take the Serbian family in the headlines this week. They had jobs, they were not ‘scrounging’ off the system but contributing to it through tax and social security payments, their children were at Greek schools and would have grown up as Cypriots if allowed to.
Is this such a bad thing in a country with a falling birth rate and a severe labour shortage? If we need foreign workers, then we must treat them with respect and within the rule of law, not abandon their fates to the whims of overworked immigration officials.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2005
BARELY a week goes by without the immigration department being accused of arbitrary behaviour in summary deportations of foreign nationals. Indeed, there is little doubt that the cases that come to our attention are the tip of the iceberg, involving people with friends or relatives confident enough to pick up the phone to report their plight to the Ombudswoman or the media.
Many of the cases highlighted on these pages in recent months have involved deportations of third country nationals married to EU or even Cypriot citizens, or of foreigners thrown out of the country despite having legally been in residence for more than five years – the threshold defined by the European Union for automatic access to permanent residency.
How many more cases there must be, where deportees do not have an articulate local to speak up on their behalf, or where, while their deportations might be justified, due procedures have been ignored and their basic rights trampled in the process?
There is no doubt that the authorities are swamped under the weight of applications. Immigration to the island has spiralled in the past few years, to the point where Cyprus now has the highest concentration of asylum seekers per capita in the EU.
Understaffed and with little time or inclination for the niceties of EU law, it is hardly surprising that the officers are offhand in their treatment of applicants.
Rather, it is to their political masters that we should look for answers. In any other country in Europe, immigration would be a top issue. In Cyprus there isn’t even the hint of a debate. And yet there should be: not the kind of strident debate driven by the far right, but a rational discussion of our immigration needs.
Cyprus needs foreign labour: our economy would come to a standstill without it. And so far we have tried to have our cake and eat it, to bring workers in without having to consider the social repercussions. For a while, our system of high turnover immigration has worked, but it is beginning to show the strain, and the EU’s directive on residency rights has pointed the spotlight on its shortcomings. The government’s answer is a wave of deportations – some legitimate, others not – but this is a short-term answer that has to stop.
Migrants have rights. Just as generations of Cypriots built new lives in England, Australia or America, so Serbs, Ukrainians, Syrians or Sri Lankans legally working here for more than five years should have the right to build a new life in Cyprus.
Take the Serbian family in the headlines this week. They had jobs, they were not ‘scrounging’ off the system but contributing to it through tax and social security payments, their children were at Greek schools and would have grown up as Cypriots if allowed to.
Is this such a bad thing in a country with a falling birth rate and a severe labour shortage? If we need foreign workers, then we must treat them with respect and within the rule of law, not abandon their fates to the whims of overworked immigration officials.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2005
- Zox
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- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 12:59 pm
45 posts
• Page 5 of 5 • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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