The scenes we saw over the past days, of more than 150 asylum seekers 'saved' by the police from decrepit apartment buildings in Bugibba make sad watching.

Here were people who paid upward of €200 a month to be able to share a room with four or five others in a rat-infested, non-salutary, unhygienic building, surrounded by drug dealers and people with no permission to stay on the island.

Such scenes repeat earlier scenes as police cleared up stables in Marsa and a farm in Qormi where migrants slept instead of horses.

Such scenes are common in the fourth world fringes of cities overseas such as Rome where a girl was recently left to die after she had a drug overdose because those around her were afraid of contacting the police to take her to hospital.

People have long claimed that Bugibba was sliding into a ghetto of mostly foreigners who were being crowded into apartments and who did not contribute to keep the area neat and tidy but turned the place into a rubbish dump, although successive councils tried their best to keep the area clean.

This has also happened in other places such as Hamrun and Marsa while Hal Far has become a black township and a quite daunting area to drive through.

All this is the underbelly of the Maltese economic miracle, the flipside to all the positive credit ratings and a huge threat to our future because the dynamics that have created this situation seem unstoppable and out of control.

This is precisely what is wrong with Malta today - things are out of control and sporadic raids by the police do not stem the flood.

It is clear that the popular idea that migrants come in on boats is a misconception for many more come in by plane or catamaran and are very loosely allowed in. As happened in Bugibba, a number are without residency permits and police do not carry out enough stop and search patrols.

The laws then are lax and loosely applied. In the light of these last events it should be made a crime to allow people to crowd in an apartment beyond what that apartment should take.

In a case like Bugibba's the decrepit buildings should be taken away from their owner and bricked up until something is done to them. It was reported in these past days that there are a number of unused hotels in the area which are sharing the same fate.

As the people of Bugibba can tell you, it is such cases, long reported by the residents, that have given the place a bad name.

What the people of Bugibba can tell, is also what the people of Hamrun or Marsa can tell. The people know what is going on, and the police maybe know it even more. So why not more pro-active policing?

These people are unfortunates - they have been lured to Malta by the chimera there are jobs for everyone, even without skills, and money to be earned. And indeed there are, especially in the building sector, but with all the building that's going on, if these people have not found any jobs, they may not find any in the foreseeable future. So they do not have any future in Malta.

One pities such people who have fled from war and misery, crossed deserts and endured unspeakable hardships, only to find poverty here at the end of the line. But allowing them in and allowing them to mass in decrepit apartments will not make their lives any better, especially if there are no ways how they can learn, how they can integrate, how they can plan a better future for themselves and their children.