Human rights groups protest migrant policy

Immigrant groups and anti-racist organizations in Greece are holding a rally in central Athens at 7 p.m. tomorrow, World Day Against Racism, to draw attention to immigrants’ difficulties, particularly with Greece’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. At a press conference yesterday, human rights groups criticized government policy on immigrant labor.. «On the one hand, the government wants a greater percentage of immigrants to acquire legal status, although it virtually holds them hostage by only giving them temporary status,» said Costas Argaliotis, of the Refugees’ and Immigrants’ Social Support Network. «On the other hand, it wants some to remain illegal to exert pressure on the labor market.» Network officials said only 350,000 of the estimated 700,000-1,000,000 illegal immigrants in Greece have been able to apply for legal status, and ten percent of these would be able to renew their residence permits. Meanwhile, the state schoolteachers’ union said 80,000 children of immigrant families are not attending school.