Public Order minister expresses satisfaction with illegal migrant campaign

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias traveled to Patra on Tuesday to check on the progress of a crackdown by police that began on Monday on illegal squats in the western port city, which is part of a nationwide operation, dubbed Xenios Zeus, to round up undocumented immigrants.

Dendias expressed his satisfaction with the progress of the Patra campaign, in which more than 150 migrants were detained during raids on some 65 properties, including abandoned buildings, around the new port. He also said that so far the Xenios Zeus operation has led to more than 2,000 repatriations, adding that detainees from Patra would be transferred to a migrant detention center in Corinth and that there are no plans to construct a similar facility in the western port city.

“The government wants to send the message that Greece is not an unguarded field which anyone can enter,» Dendias said.

The public order minister also announced sweeping changes being planned for the police force, which, he said, will «be liberated it from its static structure.”