What Trump Told Italy About Immigration Policy?

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Monday praised the "very firm" immigration policy of the new Italian government and said that "a lot of other countries in Europe should be doing it also".

"I agree very much what you're doing with respect to migration and illegal immigration, and even legal immigration," Efe Trump as saying in his remarks welcoming Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to the White House.

Along those lines, Trump remarked that the Italian government "has taken a very firm stance on the border", something that he said other countries should do, commenting that "some have taken that stance a long time ago, and they're doing a lot better".

Trump has repeatedly claimed that there is a lack of border control in the US and has insisted on the need to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to halt the arrival of illegal migrants.

The Italian government, pushed by controversial Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, has launched a firm migration control policy to close the country's ports to humanitarian organizations that are attempting to save lives among illegal migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

Conte, a neophyte with no political base of his own, was proposed for the post of prime minister by the two parties that got the most votes in the Italian elections: the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement and Salvini's far-right Lega party.

(IANS)