Friday, 3 July 2009

Bloody foreigners up to no good, as per usual.

From the BBC:

Italy's parliament has given final approval to a law criminalising illegal immigration* and allowing citizens' patrols to help the police keep order. The new measures have been strongly criticised by human rights groups and the Vatican. Illegal immigration will be punishable by a hefty fine and those who knowingly house illegal migrants will face up to three years in prison. The law also extends detention periods for illegal migrants to six months...

* Isn't that a tautology? How do you "criminalise" something that's already illegal?

3 comments:

TheFatBigot said...

It is illegal to break a contract in that it is against the law, but it is not against the criminal law. Create an offence of breaking a contract and you would criminalise something that is already illegal.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TFB, touché, but 'illegal' immigration is not a breach of private contract, it's a breach of criminal law, i.e. purely statute based.

TheFatBigot said...

I don't know Italian law, but it is quite conceivable that "illegal immigration" did not carry a criminal penalty but just deportation and now it has been made criminal.