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Thousands of migrants traveled by boat from North Africa to Italy's southern islands in Summer and Fall 2004. After 2,600 arrived in Lampedusa - geographically closer to Tunisia than to Europe- during the first weekend in October, the Italian government briefly returned migrants to Libya on Italian C-130 planes without allowing them to file asylum applications. Critics said that returning migrants without allowing them to claim asylum violated the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention.

Italian officials said that migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia are being allowed to stay, but that others were being returned. The Libyan government, which has not signed the Geneva Refugee Convention, intends to hold the migrants in detention centers before flying them to their countries of origin.

Italy plans to conduct joint sea, air and land patrols with Libya to curb illegal migration, and supports calls to establish processing centers in North Africa to discourage migrants from setting out by boat for Europe. Mario Borghezio of the Northern League party said "measures are necessary to put an end once and for all to this exodus, which is of biblical proportions."

Most of the migrants have no identity documents, and some reports suggest that many of the migrants are Egyptian, but say they are Palestinian or Sudanese so they will not be sent back. The Washington Post profiled 21 Egyptians from Zenara whom smugglers promised, for $2,500 each, to take through Libya and then on to Italy by boat. They were never heard from again, and their relatives blamed the Egyptian government for not doing enough to help them find out what happened. Some 9,985 migrants reached Italy's southern shores by boat between July 2003 and June 2004, compared with 19,294 a year earlier.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said: "This umpteenth tragedy at sea dramatically heightens the need to regulate migration through broad international agreements addressing countries of origin, transit and arrival." Romanians are the fastest growing immigrant group in Italy, along with Ukrainians and Moldovans.

Libya, the only North African country that does not have an agreement with the EU to curb illegal migration, announced in August 2004 that it had 1.5 million would-be migrants headed for Europe. Germany's interior minister, Otto Schily, supports a plan first floated by Britain's Tony Blair to create reception centers in North Africa, and return all those who reach Europe by boat to these reception centers for interviews to determine if they are in need of asylum. Schily's plan got a mixed reaction when it was discussed at a meeting of European interior ministers in the Netherlands in October 2004. Italy supports the idea, Spain and Portugal said the plan should be studied. France, Belgium and Sweden complained that the camps would be set up in countries that do not have good records in protecting refugee rights.

Germany got involved in the Italian boat people crisis when the Cap Anamur, a German humanitarian ship operated by a group with the same name, picked up 37 migrants mostly from Ghana and Nigeria on June 20, 2004, and eventually docked in Sicily, where the ship's captain and the Cap Anamur's leader were charged with abetting illegal migration. Cap Anamur leaders say that they think Europe must learn to deal with immigration, but deny the smuggling charge, and the Italian government said the German group staged a publicity stunt. Schily, reacting to the incident, said that "The problems of Africa should be solved with the help of Europe in Africa, they cannot be solved in Europe."

Italian Rocco Buttiglione, who becomes EU Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs in November 2004, said that Europe faces a "time bomb" as foreigners seeking better jobs continue to arrive and apply for asylum. Buttiglione endorsed the call for reception centers in non-EU countries through which migrants transit en route to EU countries. Asylum interviews would be conducted in these centers, and those found not in need of protection would be returned to their countries of origin.

The European Commission in October 2004 announced that it would provide E1.25 million to help Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya to develop their asylum system in conjunction with UNHCR. Migrants from further south in Africa would be allowed to apply for asylum in these five countries and, if they refused to apply, they would be returned to their countries of origin. However, the program will go into effect only after the five countries sign the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees.

Spain. Spain and Italy appear headed in different directions to deal with unauthorized foreigners. Spain's new Socialist (PSOE) government announced in August 2004 that it may offer legal status to the estimated 800,000 unauthorized foreigners with jobs in Spain (their employers would have to register them with the social security system), while Italy is talking about being more aggressive to stop the arrival of boats and ships with migrants. The Spanish government is also considering offering residence permits to migrants who report to authorities the employers of unauthorized migrants.

There were reports that thousands of Africans from sub-Saharan countries were camped on the outskirts of Tangiers, waiting for an opportunity to board boats for southern Spain. Other migrants attempt to make the 100-mile crossing from Morocco to the Canary Islands, a less-policed route--3,300 were caught in the first seven months of 2004.

Spain is buying boats, helicopters, night-vision scopes and heat-seeking cameras to detect migrants crossing the nine-mile Strait of Gibraltar and landing between Barbate to Algeciras, and erecting a similar defensive perimeter around the Canary Islands. The EU says that 25 percent of the 500,000 unauthorized foreigners arriving each year enter via Spain, and the Spanish government hopes that a new cooperative attitude with Morocco can stem unauthorized migration despite a 12 to 1 wage gap.

On March 11, 2004, several commuter trains in Madrid were bombed, and 192 people were killed, including 48 foreign nationals; most of the suspects were Moroccan. In August 2004, some 808 migrants affected by the bombings, including 355 on the trains that were bombed, were given legal status. Of those receiving legal status, 39 percent were Romanian, 27 percent were Ecuadorian and 10 percent were Colombian.

Spain has two enclaves on the Moroccan coast, Melilla and Ceuta, that are ringed by fences to keep Moroccans and other Africans out. In August 2004, several hundred Africans attempting to migrate to Europe broke through the fence at Melilla, and hundreds of migrants are reportedly camped around the fence, awaiting a chance to slip in. Morocco receives almost $4 billion a year in remittances, which comprise almost 10 percent of its GDP.

Tracy Wilkinson, "Italy Deporting Illegal Migrants as They Pour In," Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004. Ian Fisher and Richard Bernstein, "On Italian Isle, Migrant Plight Draws Scrutiny," New York Times, October 5, 2004. Daniel Williams, "Job-Seekers' Odyssey Freighted With Risk," Washington Post, October 4, 2004.