Exploiting immigrants: Have we learnt history’s lesson?

IN THE last few days, almost 1,000 migrants were rescued from three overcrowded skiffs off Libya. 

Around 1,500 people were picked up from five boats near the Libyan coast last week. Refugees routinely run the gauntlet from Libya to Sicily to try to reach the EU. It is believed that around 3,500 people drowned trying to make this crossing last year, while more than 170,000 managed to reach Italy.

One of the sad consequences of this entirely human desire to live in a better, safer world is how the fear of immigration is being exploited by politicians in elections across Europe.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s Front National is that country’s third-largest political party. Ukip, a new force in British politics that wants tighter immigration controls, may win enough seats in Britain’s May 7 election to influence the composition of the next government.

Just this weekend an ultra right-wing Polish party held a meeting in Dublin to try to convince Poles living here to vote for them in their May 10 presidential election.

Last Friday, 2,700 people became Irish citizens in Dublin’s Convention Centre. More than 85,000 people have done so since 2011.

These figures are a cause for celebration, even if our system for dealing with asylum-seekers is less than ideal. It is also significant, and cheering too, that not one Irish political party has played the immigration card.

It seems that, on this issue at least, we can learn from our tragic past.