Salvini: ‘I Am Proud’ to Have Halted Illegal Immigration

Italy’s indomitable interior minister Matteo Salvini said Tuesday he is “proud” to have put an end to illegal immigration in Italy.

“You enter Italy by saying ‘May I come in’ and ‘Please,’” Mr. Salvini said in a Tweet to his followers, explaining that by combatting illegal immigration he was also fighting human trafficking and the drug trade.

Decrying smugglers and human traffickers, Salvini said he had evidence that “with the money they make—around 3,000 euro for every person they put on the boat—they buy arms and drugs. So stopping the trafficking of human beings does not just mean stopping immigration, but it also means blocking weapon and drug trafficking.”

“So as long as you keep saying, ‘it’s the last boatload, it’s the last boatload, it’s the last boatload,’ the smugglers continue doing their dirty and criminal work,” he said in a television interview he attached to his Tweet.

“My objective, as we are already doing, is to invest money in Africa because I recall that with six euros a day you can give a child room, board, education, healthcare,” he said.

Asked by the television interviewer why the European Union has not adopted this common sense approach, Salvini said that there are other interests at work.

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