For some political forces, immigration isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a problem that must be kept alive.
The “dangerous foreigner” is the finest political fertiliser for parties that invest in it to boost their electoral harvest. It’s common sense, really. The loudest anti-immigration voices need the problem so they can play the solution.
Even if the facts have changed, undermining their narrative: in 2022, irregular arrivals hit 21,000, whilst in 2025 just 2,800 were recorded.
Today, asylum seekers and those granted international protection total 32,000. According to Deputy Migration Minister Nicholas Ioannides, 80% of applications are rejected because they’re found to lack legal basis.
Last December, Parliament also passed legislation allowing immediate deportation of those involved in criminal offences. The law has already been activated in recent cases of incidents between foreigners.
Another major development is the operation of the pre-departure centre being built in the Limnes area. The first zone will open by the end of the month, with completion expected by summer.
This means police can intensify operations and increase arrests of people residing illegally in Cyprus. Let’s remember that under the previous government, due to lack of temporary detention facilities, police had to wait for space to free up at Menoyia before they could arrest others to take their place!
So much for illegal immigration. Now for legal immigration. Third-country nationals living legally in Cyprus, according to Mr Ioannides, number 180,000—people who work, study, or have married Cypriots and Europeans.
Therefore, the anti-immigration battle cry that “we’re overrun with foreigners”—if you look at the numbers—doesn’t refer to illegals, but mainly to legal migrants. The delivery driver, the domestic worker, the people working in restaurant kitchens, livestock farms, construction sites, hotels.
Let’s recall that in 2023, Nicos Anastasiades’s cabinet increased the percentage of third-country nationals that businesses could employ from 30% to 50%—with certain conditions that are questionable whether they’re being met.
At the time, workers’ unions, including PEO, warned this “would intensify problems in the labour market” and depress wages for all workers.
Today, employers (OEB, KEBE) are back asking for an even greater increase in the percentage of foreign workers in specific sectors. But far-right anti-immigration rhetoric doesn’t touch this aspect, because it doesn’t want to upset the business establishment and its political backers. We understand the reason, of course.
Big business profiting from cheap labour—occasionally undeclared labour—isn’t as easy an enemy as… the foreigner himself.
So when they talk about immigration, they deliberately choose to maintain the impression of illegality, of parasitic living by people abusing public money and stealing our jobs. When in reality, more than 200,000 foreigners living in Cyprus are legal! But we get it, don’t we?
Why make life difficult for yourself attacking those who shaped the current model, when you can simply shout “out with the foreigners” and get the job done?
