Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/758493
2 JURGEN BALZAN THE government has no policy which prohibits the deportation of families as this would send the wrong message to potential asylum seekers, home affairs minister Car- melo Abela said. This follows a MaltaToday report on a married couple who have been in Malta for 11 years and who fear they will be deported to Eritrea together with their Malta-born children once their Temporary Humanitarian Protection – N(ew) [THP-n] expires in August 2017. However, Abela this week denied the story and said it's either false or made up. "The story claims that the mi- grants are Eritrean, when as a mat- ter of fact most Eritrean migrants manage to get protection. If these two child migrants come from an Eritrean family, then why didn't they get protection?" Speaking to MaltaToday, the mother of the two children said that their asylum application was rejected more than once, with the latest rejection coming in 2015. The woman said she has no docu- mentation from Eritrea – a country where torture, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, indefinite military conscription and forced labour are commonplace – and both her parents are dead. To com- pound matters further, she has lost contact with her sister whom she last spoke to some two years ago. "I even had a family friend flown over from Italy at my expense to take an oath and testify that he knows me but the Refugee Com- missioner said this was not suf- ficient evidence and rejected my application," she said. The family is concerned that once their temporary protection expires next year and their work permits will be revoked they will not be in a position to provide for their two children, aged eight and seven. Reacting to the report on the possible deportation of the Malta- born children and their parents to Eritrea, Children's Commissioner Pauline Miceli issued a statement in which she said migrant families who have settled and integrated in Malta should be allowed to acquire Maltese citizenship. But Abela refused to pledge not to deport any migrant children back to Africa, instead insisting that he "will abide by Maltese and EU leg- islation." Speaking to MaltaToday he said that the government does not have a policy on the non-deportation of families and children "as this would send the wrong message" to poten- tial asylum seekers. The government is insisting that it has no option but to repatriate 'failed asylum seekers' with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying that they will be deported even if they have been residing in Malta for a long time. "We would have no credibility with the EU if, after we have been insisting so much on the country not being able to take in immi- grants, we fail to repatriate immi- grants who have been found to be here illegally." This month the home affairs min- istry announced that THP-n will no longer be issued by the Office of the Refugee Commissioner while cur- rent holders will be able to renew their certificates, provided that all current eligibility criteria are met. But human rights NGOs have warned that many 'failed asylum seekers', including the Eritrean family which is fearing deportation, are unable to meet the require- ments as several countries of ori- gin refuse or are unable to provide these documents. maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 DECEMBER 2016 News Give stateless children citizenship – PN Abela: Policy against deportation of families 'would send wrong message' TIM DIACONO THE Nationalist Party has backed a call for Malta-born children of asylum seekers to be granted Mal- tese citizenship. PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami told MaltaToday that it is not right for some children to be left effectively stateless and urged the government to seriously con- sider granting them Maltese citi- zenship. "It is ironic that the government is selling citizenship to millionaires without telling anyone who they are, while at the same time acting macho with babies who were born in Malta. It is a sign of its dou- ble standards – it is acting strong with the weak and weak with the strong." The issue arose when Malta- Today revealed last week that an Eritrean couple who have been in Malta for 11 years, along with their two children who were born here, are in line for deportation. This is because the government has decided to revoke temporary humanitarian protection (new) [THP-n], which granted failed asy- lum seekers temporary protection – that had to be renewed annually – which allowed them to obtain a residence permit and a work per- mit. "We cannot understand why they are doing this to us. Why do they want to uproot our family from Malta," the Eritrean couple, whose THP-n will expire in August next year, said. "This is where our two children, aged eight and seven, were born and where they go to school and where they have friends. Malta is effectively our country. Our chil- dren were born in Malta yet they'll be deported once our temporary protection expires." Since then, Marlene Farrugia's newly-fledged Partit Demokratiku has called for the children of failed asylum seekers to be granted Mal- tese citizenship, while Children's Commissioner Pauline Miceli went a step further and said that all mi- grant families who have integrated in Malta should be allowed to ac- quire citizenship. Home affairs minister Carmelo Abela has rejected calls to grant long-term migrants Maltese citi- zenship, and has vehemently de- nied MaltaToday's revelations that children are in line for deportation to Eritrea. 'Deportations a populist tactic' – Fenech Adami The Nationalist Party has not officially reacted since the police rounded up 33 Malian migrants (nine of whom were later freed) and detained them at the Safi detention centre in lieu of their deportation to their country of origin. However, when approached by MaltaToday, Fenech Adami – the shadow home affairs minister – was quick to decry the deportations as a populist tactic that is in breach of Malta's international obligations. "We must look beyond populist moves and keep in mind that be- hind these numbers are people who were forced to flee from danger- ous countries to seek shelter else- where," he said. "It would be a very big mistake for Malta to give in to the sort of populism that has taken over the USA and is rising across Europe." Abela has vehemently denied that the government's decision to stop issuing THP-n permits stemmed from a desire to appease anti-immi- grant public sentiment. "Had we wanted to appease pub- lic sentiment, we wouldn't have participated in the EU scheme to relocate migrants from Italy and Greece," he said. "Instead, Malta is at the forefront of that scheme and has already taken in 53% of the mi- grants it pledged to relocate." However, he refused to give a straight answer when asked point blank whether the government can promise not to deport African chil- dren. "I can promise that I will abide by Maltese and EU legislation," he re- sponded. Citizenship by birth Canada and the United States are among very few countries that observe birthright citizenship. Up to 2001, people born in Malta automatically acquired citizenship but this was changed by the then Nationalist government. Since then, people born in Malta only acquire Maltese citizenship at birth if one of the parents is either a Maltese citizen or was born in Malta. This is leading to situations where children born in Malta to non-Maltese parents, go to school, learn the language, build relationships and know no other country but Malta, yet their ID card says they are foreign. In a statement issued this week, Commissioner for Children Pauline Miceli said "the fact that some of these migrants have given birth to and are raising children in Malta is a clear sign that Malta is their actual home. The Office believes that it is in the best interest of these migrant children for the status of the entire family unit to be regularized, since this safeguards the children's fundamental right to a family life." The commissioner added that citizenship is a right that migrant families with children should be able to accede to at some point in the course of their lives in Malta. "The pathway should not be limited to those children who are born in Malta but equally to those migrant children who were born in other countries but who have settled and integrated here whether or not they enjoy international protection," Miceli said. Citizenship by naturalisation While many European countries grant citizenship to long-term or permanent residents, in Malta the acquisition of citizenship by naturalisation is overshadowed by the "singular non-reviewable discretion" which the home affairs minister enjoys in each case, according to a report issued by the European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) citizenship observatory. The discretionary powers of the minister are described as "avenues of potential abuse and conflicts of interest". While the rich can purchase a Maltese citizenship for €650,000, people who have made Malta their home are made to wait for up to 20 years before being naturalised. In order to apply, one must have also resided in Malta for the 12 months immediately before submitting the application for citizenship and have previously resided in Malta for periods amounting to four years in the previous six years. Moreover, applicants are required to be of good character, have an adequate knowledge of the Maltese or the English language; and "be a suitable citizen of Malta." But the minister's discretionary powers often lead to people waiting for 20 years before being naturalised. In many other European countries, the average wait is five or six years, with Nordic countries having the most progressive policies. In Finland, citizenship is granted after five years of continuous residence, with the requirement reduced to four years for refugees, stateless persons and people married to Finnish citizens. The most stringent requirements among EU countries do not exceed 10 years of residence. 'Migrant families who have settled in Malta should be allowed to have Maltese citizenship' Commissioner for Children Pauline Miceli Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela