Italy has witnessed a remarkable drop in new migrant arrivals in 2018, with numbers for the first half of the year 80 percent lower than over the same period last year.
According to data released Monday by the United Nations immigration agency (UNHCR), a total of 16,919 migrants have arrived by sea into Italy this year as of July 8, whereas over the same period in 2017 a total of 85,197 migrants had arrived.
Unsurprisingly, the number of migrant deaths in the central Mediterranean Sea has also decreased significantly, falling from 2,258 to less than half that, or 1,058, in the same six-month period. The drop in migrant sea deaths due to more stringent immigration policies demonstrates that tougher immigration regulation in these situations helps save lives, contrary to the fallacious argument to the contrary.
The total number of migrants lost at sea reached its highest point in 2016, with 4,578 migrants declared either dead or missing. That year also marked the record number of migrants arriving across the Mediterranean onto Italian shores, a total of 181,436, UNHCR revealed.
Discouraging migrants from attempting the perilous crossing has proven to be the most effective remedy to the high number of migrant sea deaths, addressing the concern of Pope Francis that the Mediterranean was becoming a “vast cemetery” for migrants.
The dramatic drop in migrant arrivals began with accords made last summer between Italy and the Libyan coast guard to prevent NGOs from picking migrants up off the coast of that nation and has been further fueled by the new populist government’s hardline stance against illegal immigration and its resistance to the infamous NGO “shuttle service” from North Africa.
ITS A UN SCAM , WORLD WIDE TO MIX THE RACES SO THERE WILL BE NO INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES, STOP THE MADNESS SEND ALL BOAT PEOPLE BACK HOME , THEY FIX THEIR COUNTRIES OR DIE TRYING, MY OPINION,STOP MAKING PEOPLE YOU CANNOT FEED AND TAKE CARE OF —– BIRTH CONTROL — EVER HEARD OF IT,, MY OWN OPINION,, 50 YEARS AGO THE GOV TOLD AMERICANS DON,T HAVE BABIES YOU CANNOT SUPPORT —- SO NOW YOU TELL US WE SHOULD SUPPORT OTHER PEOPLES KIDS FROM BIRTH TO GRAVE WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP, MY OPINION,,STOP THE INSANITY..