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Spain Launches Joint Immigrants Deportation
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Alonso, who proposed the join flights, said they are needed to improve the controls on illegal immigration and common borders.
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By
Al-Amin Andalusi, IOL Correspondent
MADRID,
September 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Spain has started the deportation
of thousands of illegal immigrants as part of an organized operation
with four other European countries.
A
Spanish flight carrying 75 illegal Romanian immigrants left Madrid on
Thursday, September 22.
It
stopped in France and Italy to pick up another 50 others before flying
them back to Romania.
The
interior ministers of Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany -
Group of Five - have agreed to organize joint flights to deport
illegal immigrants.
The
proposal to operate joint repatriation flights had been put forward by
Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso.
The
G5 was set up in 2003 to battle rising illegal immigration, with the
European Commission estimating that around half a million illegal
immigrants flock to Europe each year in search of a better life.
The
Schengen agreement allows free movement of people between the 15
European country signatories through border control removal.
Future
flights
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The
European Commission estimates that around half a million illegal
immigrants flock to Europe each year in search of a better life.
(Reuters)
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Spain
is planning another flight next month to fly illegal immigrants from
Ecuador and Colombia back to their countries of origin.
Italy
was also planning a flight to Nigeria later in September and had
invited its partners from the G5 to take part.
Alonso
said the flights are needed to improve the controls on illegal
immigration and common borders.
Cooperation
among the G5 will also include joint naval operations in the
Mediterranean to deter people-trafficking from Africa.
French
Interior Minister Nicola Sarcozy has criticized Spain for legalizing
the status of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Earlier
this year Spain amnestied around 700,000 immigrants without documents
after proving they had arrived before last August, had a job contract
and no criminal record.
Spain,
according to official statistics, is home to more than one and a half
million illegal immigrants, including an estimated half a million
Muslims from North African countries.
At
least 10,000 have died over the past fifteen years trying to reach
Spain from Moroccan shores in rickety boat accidents, according to
estimates by immigrant groups.
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