Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/791658
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2017 15 once they are released. Diara and Sekou both had jobs to go back to, and which were kept for them by their employers for three months. Others were not so lucky, and lost their employment as a result of their arrest. But even for those in employment, the situation is far from clear. Sekou explains that failed asy- lum seekers are technically able to work and pay taxes thanks to a temporary work permit, but are denied the facilities offered to ref- ugees or THP-holders. "After the [initial] detention, you can go to either Hal Far or Marsa open cen- tres. I will give you my situation as an example. I was at Marsa for one year. At the open centre you can go to school and they will help you find a job... but only if you have protection. If, like me, you don't have protection... it doesn't matter if you are working or not, after one year you have to leave the centre. Where will you sleep?" Open centre residents also re- ceive an allowance, he adds, which amounts to 90 euros a month. Once the year is up, even that meagre income evaporates. There is, however, a curious paradox in all this. On one hand, failed asylum seekers are at every point reminded of the illegality of their status... and efforts are un- derway to have them deported. At the same time, the State furnishes them with perfectly legal work permits, indirectly encouraging them to think their presence here has been regularised. Sekou seems conscious of this contradiction: "We know we are illegal here. But when you start to work, when you have a work per- mit... I think that is authorisation to work, given by the government of a country. We are illegal immi- grants, but the work permit is not illegal. We pay taxes..." There is also evidence that de- mand for such workers is high. Asked how easy or difficult it is for a failed asylum seeker to find and retain employment in Malta, both Sekou and Diara say it is "simple". In Diara's case, his employers even tried to convince the authorities to allow him to stay on (the fact that his job was retained for 90 days attests to this, too). This raises a question: if these people have been working and contributing to the economy for seven years – and their contribu- tions are clearly both needed and welcome (at least, to their em- ployers... and possibly the Inland Revenue Department also)... why, in their opinion, is their presence here considered such a problem that they had to be arrested and detained? Why do they them- selves think they are being threat- ened with deportation? "I think it is because they don't like me," Sekou replies after a pause. "Because it's not my coun- try; because I don't have protec- tion..." Nonetheless Sekou argues – al- so through a Constitutional case filed by his lawyer - that the seven years he has spent contributing to the economy should legally en- title him, and others in the same position, to a status of legality. "It is not me saying this, but the law of Malta. After five years working in Malta and paying tax contribu- tions – with a clean police con- duct – they do not have the right to put you back in detention. In prison, yes, if you break the law... but detention is not prison. You are put there for no reason... this is against Maltese law, and also against human rights..." Interview DIARA DIAMBOUROU and SEKOU DIPA, two of the nine Malian detainees released last week after 90 days in custody, talk about the conditions of detention, and the legal limbo faced by failed asylum seekers in Malta