Macron Accused by Italy of Failing to Match Words With Action on Migration
Italy has questioned the lack of support from France on migration, with officials in Rome noting the failure of the Macron government to offer any new help.
“After saying they understand our problem, it doesn’t seem like France wants to help us concretely,” the Financial Times reported Mario Giro, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, as saying.
When Emmanuel Macron took power in France he appeared to signal a shift from his predecessor’s closed stance on migration. With Italy now receiving a far greater number of refugees and migrants than other member states, he suggested France would help.
“We have not listened enough to Italy’s cry for help on the migration crisis,” Macron said in May. Since then nothing has changed from the closed-door era of Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande.
“We need more solidarity in the management of migration, not just compared to our expectations but his own words,” said Giro.
Italy faces elections in 2018 and expects up to 200,000 asylum seekers to arrive this year via the central Mediterranean route. Rome recently threatened to redirect charity rescue ships, with migrants aboard, to other European ports.
Supreme Court Delivers Mixed Decision on Trump Travel Bans
The U.S. Supreme Court has given qualified backing to the Trump travel ban. It upheld a bar on refugees, reports AP, but rejected an attempt to bar grandparents from some Muslim-majority countries.
The decision, which followed a federal judge in a lower court limiting the scope of the ban on both refugees and Muslim-majority countries, does little to clear the confusion.
The mixed decision temporarily means that grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings-in-law are not covered by the 90-day travel ban on people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The court upheld the 120-day block on refugees entering the U.S. It leaves as many as 24,000 refugees awaiting resettlement in the U.S. in a state of limbo.
U.K. Government Fails to Take in a Single Extra Lone Refugee Child
The U.K. government has been criticized for not taking any extra refugee children. The revelation means Britain is no closer to the target of taking 480 unaccompanied minors, reports the Guardian.
A campaign to bring 3,000 lone refugee children to Britain under the so-called Dubs amendment eventually saw the government agree to 480 places being made available.
Immigration minister Brandon Lewis was accused of “dragging his feet” when he said he would visit Italy and Greece to investigate referrals. Thousands of unaccompanied refugee children have been identified in both countries.
Only 200 children were transferred during 2016 after the closure of the Calais “Jungle” camp and 280 local authority places remain unfilled.
“It’s unacceptable that we have seen no children brought under the Dubs scheme this year,” said Lily Caprani from UNICEF. “We are seeing too many children still having to make dangerous journeys to reach safety.”
Recommended Reads:
- TNT: Turkey and Mexico: Safe Havens for Refugees
- Deutsche Welle: How African Migrants Are Turning the Tide for Refugees in Germany
- Spectator: Madness in the Med: How Charity Rescue Boats Exacerbate the Refugee Crisis
- IRIN: Meet the Gambian Migrants Under Pressure to Leave Europe