In the latest example of a European government taking stronger measures to curb illegal immigration, the Greek Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that promises lengthy prison sentences for migrants who stay in the country after their asylum requests have been rejected.
“The Greek state does not accept you. You only have one choice: to go back. You’re not welcome," said Migration Minister Thanos Plevris after the bill passed. The new law is the second major tightening of Greek immigration in the last two months. On July 9, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis completely suspended asylum applications for three months, saying he was effectively notifying human smugglers that “the passage to Greece is closed.”
The two moves came after the pace of illegal-immigrant arrivals on Crete reached crisis levels this summer, with the number of illegals landing on the island in the first six months of 2025 tripling over the same period last year. The last straw that prompted Mitsotakis' three-month asylum ban was the arrival of more than 2,600 illegals on Crete just during the first week of July. The move quickly paid off, slashing arrivals to just 500 over the first 27 days of August.
Under the new law, which was championed by Mitsotakis, migrants who fail to leave the country after their asylum request is rejected face up to five years in prison and fines of up to 30,000 euros. The penalty for illegal entry is tripled to 10,000 euros. The deadline for leaving after being rejected was slashed from 25 days to 14, and authorities are now authorized to outfit rejected applicants with ankle monitors so they can be tracked until they leave, the New York Times reports. The law also abolished illegal immigrants' previous privilege of applying for residence after they'd been in Greece for seven years.
During parliamentary debate on Tuesday, Plevris said asylum-seekers fell into two categories:
“There are those who are downtrodden, and then there are some who are spoiled, who think that Europe owes them. We need to put emphasis on the voluntary returns, but there will be consequences for those who do not choose to return to their countries.”
Crete became a preferred dumping ground for migrant-smugglers after other European countries imposed tougher asylum processes or increased their offshore patrols and other security measures. When asylum requests were barred, Plevris told a reporter:
"All European countries now understand that it is not possible to have open borders, it's not possible to welcome illegal migrants with flowers. There should be a clear message that countries have borders, (that) Europe has exceeded its capabilities and will not accept any more illegal migrants."
In one of the continuing consequences of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton's utterly catastrophic regime-change operation, most of the diversity landing on the shores of Crete this year has come from Libya. Cursed by geography, Greece has long suffered from the effects of US-led destabilization campaigns, particularly in 2015-16, when hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa flowed through the country.