MEP Roberta Metsola said today that she chose to be part of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs because irregular migration falls under its responsibility and that she wished to focus on an issue so close to home. “The priorities of the Maltese are my priorities,” she said, explained that she was delegated to write particular laws on strengthening migration border control in the EU.

She said that this law will provide better border control. “This will include more security in the European Union through better advanced technology, and strengthen the return system of those people who do not have any rights to remain in the EU will be returned safely back to their place of origin.” She said that the EU will also employee another 10,000 border guards to protect the frontiers.

She said that the objections of these laws are to protect those who are fleeing their country and facing life or death and to protect them from those individuals who try to take advantage and exploit these vulnerable people. “These objections reflect on the party’s own principles, to help all those people going through a hard time, regardless of which they are and against exploitation.”

Irregular migration was and has been a sensitive issue in Malta and also in the European Union, Nationalist MP Carm Mifsud Bonnici said.

He said that the Nationalist Party looks at irregular migration from two aspects; that there is respect towards the fundamental rights of the individual, security of protection and provide opportunities for those migrants to be able to relocate themselves in Malta and on the other hand to see that those persons not provided that protection that there are the necessary measures to help them.

MEP candidate Frank Psaila said that the Nationalist Party will continue to insist that there needs to be a long term plan on what time of workers Malta is investing in and how such an influx of workers is affecting the island’s population and infrastructure.