EU is making several efforts to control illegal immigrations

The European Parliament has recently passed tough new measures directed against immigrants and refugees who are trying to get entry to the EU countries, most of whom arrive to EU illegally from some developing countries. The tougher attitude towards immigrants and refugees comes as a result of widespread pressure form the European public.

Under the new rules, EU states are authorized to detain illegal immigrants for a period of eighteen months before deporting them to their home countries. In case the illegal immigrants do not agree to move out voluntarily or it is felt that they might go into hiding, they can be held for a period of eighteen months while the local officials wait for their extradition to their home countries or any other nation. No one is spared from these detentions as this can affect the entire family including the children. However, the inclusion of children in the scheme of things has been highly criticized by the opponents.

The EU has been consistently attempting to standardize the procedures dealing with illegal immigration, refugee applications and asylum seekers and this move is yet another measure to achieve the same.

In most cases such negative attitude are based on bad feelings or fear towards the Muslim communities who have resisted integration into local societies or who are supposed to support religious extremism. There is also unhappiness towards the illegal immigrants from South East Asia and Africa along with Europeans from Balkans and Caucasus. Current estimates reveal that at present there are almost eight million illegal immigrants in the EU states.

In Canada, it is believed that the nation is benefiting by the waves of immigration and the acceptance of refugees asylum seekers and the immigrants are also considered very important for the future economic prosperity. But, this is not what the European nations think and thus they do not value immigration so much. In recent years, anti-immigrant political parties are winning a lot of support in various developed nations including Austria, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

Giusto Catania, an Italian EU parliamentarian criticized the stricter new EU immigration measures and said that it is an insult to the civilization in Europe. But, Italy’s new Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, made tougher regulations against illegal immigration as an important issue during the recent elections.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to make illegal immigration as the major point during the six month rotating EU presidency of France that began on July 1.