Trump praises Italy’s immigration policy

During the meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Trump highly praised Italy’s new strict approach to immigration, Reuters writes. 

“I agree very much with what you are doing with respect to migration, and illegal immigration, and even legal immigration,” told Conte in the Oval Office. 

“He has taken a very firm stance on the border, a stance that few countries have taken. And frankly he is doing the right thing in my opinion,” the White House’s chief said. 

Italy’s new government seeks to restrict the number of migrants arriving in the country. The government has shut the country’s ports to humanitarian rescue ships claiming that Italy bears an unfair burden in the European Union trying to cope with asylum seekers alone. 

In July, Rome allowed nearly 450 migrants to land in Sicily, but only after Germany, France, Malta, Spain, Portugal and Ireland had agreed to accept the newcomers. It was the first time for the EU partners to reach the special deal. 

Some of the EU countries, like Hungary and the Czech Republic, have refused to accept migrants. Conte said that he was trying to convince Budapest and Prague to apply more efforts to the solution of the migration issue.

Italy is trying to reconsider the Sophia mission in order to change the situation when the rescued migrants are taken only to Italy.