Tuesday,
November 27, 2007
Italy’s Open Border
Problem - Italy Did NOT Learn from the US Experience
The
ANNOTICO Report
While
40% of prison inmates in
It
is also confusing that while
While
Leftist governments had previously scuttled all attempts to stop
"illegal" immigration, it appears the mood may be changing, with the
left wing mayors of
Apparently,
Progress has been slow, because (1) the political parties' thirst for votes
from them (How can that be? Aren't only Citizens allowed to vote? Is there
great vote fraud?) (2) a permissiveness generated
by the fear of being accused of intolerance or, even worse, racism.
Italy’s Open Border Problem
Human
Events
by Stephania Lapenna
November
27, 2007
In some ways, Italians were used to all this, apparently even resigned to
living with illegal aliens crimes. Those unfamiliar with this country's
complex mentality wonder why it is that no Italian government has ever taken
serious steps against the illegal aliens. The main answer lies in the political
parties' thirst for votes from them. A secondary answer is the permissiveness
generated by the fear of being accused of intolerance or, even worse, racism. No
one dares to suggest that at least 40% of prison inmates are not Italians.
Open borders for everyone has been the official policy
followed by all kinds of governments, from left to center to right for more
than a decade. While the previous government somehow attempted to put an end to
the massive flow of undocumented people into the nation through the "Bossi-Fini law" (named after two ministers of the then
Berlusconi cabinet), the Left's electoral program stated that one of its
priorities (yes, priorities) was to eliminate that only partially successful
legislation.
Upon taking office, Prime Minister Prodi appointed a
communist to lead the newly-created Ministry of the "Immigration and
Social Politics." That speaks volumes on how the new policy was going to
be like. It took just two months after the new minister's announced plan for
the invasion to start. About 200 illegals are
flooding the so uth-western coasts of the
Authorities are now complaining about the lack of adequate means to host these
people in over-crowded temporary migrant holding centers and alerted about
radical Islamic infiltration. Don't hold your breath: Prodi
& Company can't care less; the incompetent premier declared he has no
intention of changing the failed policy. For years, Italians have been always
told the old lie according to which "our economy owes foreigners so
much."
Really? Our economy is on a slow but unstoppable decline, as
recent statistics show, and I don't think unskilled workers can lend a hand. Quite the opposite. Nevertheless, a wide-ranging bill aimed
at allowing immigrants to settle here without first getting a job and holding
a residency permit, was unveiled in March after months of
preparation and was approved by the cabinet.
Ignoring public opinion at home, Prodi was
the only European
chief of government to allow Romanian citizens to enter
Over two weeks ago, on the aftermath of the horr ific assassination of a navy officer's wife who was
walking along a secluded avenue in Rome, an emergency decree signed by the
President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano was issued, in which the police
chief was instructed to identify aliens deemed a threat to national
security because of their record and past convictions. Despite
official propaganda showing buses full of Romanian gypsies leaving Italy, only two hundred people were deported
of the thousands previously listed for expulsion. How about every single
foreigner continuously breaking the law by living here illegally?
With State authorities failing to defend scared Italian citizens, local
governors started taking matters into their own hands. The center-left wing
mayor of
I am following the American presidential debates and thus far I have not
seen any Republican candidate willing to commit himself to a radical, not soft,
reform of the immigration policy. Worse, some are either in favor of amnesty
for illegals, or they have been so in the recent
past. It seems to me that both Democrats and Republicans, with the exception of
few, have no clue of how future is going to be like as consequence of a lack of
concrete action.
The
I think
Are
Ms. Lapenna is an Italian freelance columnist and blogger presently living in |
The
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