The item under the above title in MaltaToday (15 July) laid bare the agenda of the Jesuit Refugee Service and others. It reports that JRS has recently published a study on rejected asylum seekers. So first they come without money, documents or belongings. Then they apply for asylum, because as ‘asylum seekers’ they have a certain status. The great majority are rejected because they have no grounds at law to be recognised as refugees. Some of them are given humanitarian status, which depends on Maltese generosity. Those who do not get even that status have absolutely no right to stay in Malta. And yet JRS now wants to give them a legal status. With time, of course, they will want to give them legal residence and then (why not?) Maltese nationality.
The first question is: why do rejected asylum seekers need a removal order? Once their application has been rejected they should leave; but still they stay and expect the Maltese state to transport them to their country. Despite this, your reporter says that “they have little scope or aim in integrating with Maltese society”. But once their stay in Malta is temporary and precarious, why should they integrate within Maltese society? And why are they called “members of Maltese society” if they are not and will never become so? And since they should not be in Malta at all, why complain that the Maltese government gives them only “a meagre daily allowance” of only Lm 1.75?
Your reporter ends: “The JRS report recommended that all entitlements for rejected asylum seekers are incorporated into Maltese law”. In other words, JRS wants to give a legal status to persons who should not be in Malta and they expect the Maltese state to give them “entitlements”, even though they are not entitled to anything. All this is coming from JRS which has been granted exemption from paying income tax by Legal Notice 415 of 2004 (Government Gazette N° 17655 of 20 September 2004).