EU Court stops deportations of migrant security threats

In three notable cases, the Court ruled that migrants from Congo, Ivory Coast, and Chechnya who were refused asylum in either Belgium or the Czech Republic, could stay on in their new countries.

These migrants had either been convicted of serious crimes or deemed to be a threat to the national security, Italian daily Il Giornale reported.

The court ruled that even if asylum is denied, it does not mean an automatic deportation, adding that migrants would continue to be protected under the Geneva Convention if there is reasonable evidence that they will be tortured or killed in their home countries. In such cases, the migrants cannot be deported from Europe.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini noted in response to the ruling: “This is why it is important to change this Europe with a vote for the League on May 26” adding: “However, I do not change my mind and I do not change the law: the ‘asylum seekers’ who rape, steal and sell drugs, will all go back to their homes. And in the Security Decree, there are even more stringent rules against smugglers and traffickers.”

Salvini has promised to begin deportations of criminal migrants to their home countries. Italy’s coalition government has set aside money to help negotiate the transfer of illegal migrants to countries where Italy does not have repatriation agreements.

The Security Decree was drafted and passed by the Italian parliament last year, scrapping the humanitarian residency permit, which the government expects will lead to some 2 000 migrants returning home.

Last week, conservative Catholics gathered in Rome to oppose the “global One-World Order”. Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk of the Netherlands and US Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke both traveled to Rome for the meeting.

On Thursday, Burke told an assembly that “filial piety and national patriotism are essential virtues of citizens of heaven at work on earth”.

Pope Francis has been a sharp critic of rising nationalist and sovereignist movements, denouncing earlier this month a trend toward nationalism that entails “excessive demands for sovereignty”.

“The common good has become global and nations must associate,” the Pope told members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, who gathered for their annual meeting entitled “Nation, State, Nation-State.”

In the current era of globalization, “the nation state is no longer able to procure the common good of its populations alone. The common good has become global and nations must associate for their own benefit,” the Pope said.