MORE than 20,000 migrants could receive Cypriot citizenship under a new proposal to tackle “unmanageable” numbers of asylum applicants, the government said yesterday.
In a surprise move, the assistant head of migrant integration, Nancy Yuren-Jie, who received her own citizenship just last week, presented the plan to naturalise all new arrivals, starting immediately, and with a view to extending this to illegal immigrants within a year.
Yuren-Jie said the new measures could cut asylum-seeker numbers to almost zero. Cyprus currently receives the most asylum applications in the industrialised world, according to the UNHCR’s latest report.
“The situation is completely unmanageable. Cyprus has the highest number of asylum applications in the developed world and we can only process so many before 2.30pm each day” said Yuren-Jie whose own successful assimilation as a public servant is a testament to the philosophy behind the programme.
“With third country nationals receiving citizenship on arrival at the airport, the number of applicants could return to pre-EU accession levels by April 1 next year,” she said. “This way people will become integrated in no time, especially if they are given public sector jobs like I was.”
The projections are based on a sample group of asylum seekers and domestic servants who participated in a naturalisation pilot programme, and now have Cypriot passports.
One formerly Sri Lankan construction worker who took part in the programme, Muttiyah “Costas” Jayasuriya said yesterday: “I came to Cyprus to escape the troubles in my former country, but now I am a proud citizen of the Republic of Cyprus.”
Another new member of the Cypriot fold, Hoàn Toàn Gia Mao, said she had already scheduled her Orthodox baptism for next week, but had not yet decided which football team to support: “I think I will still support Navibank Saigon,” she said.
However, the proposal received an ambivalent response from union boss Panicos Yelame, who threatened industrial action if the measures meant job losses for his members. Employers’ organisations were also upset. “We’re not thrilled that our source of cheap labour might dry up. That’s all I’m going to say,” said a source in the Exploitation of Migrants Association (EMA).
The bill is due to be discussed in parliament next week.
