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OPINION by Assan Knalla

TARIJIBAR - President Akram Sulaiman is ending the longstanding immigration policy that allows Zalluabedi and Togarian nationals who arrive in Emmiria without a visa to become permanent residents, the administration announced Thursday. The move, which wasn’t previously outlined as a foreign policy decisions of Sulaiman's term, terminates a decades-long policy that many argued amounted to preferential treatment for a single group of migrants. “By taking this step, we are treating Zalluabedi migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries,” Sulaiman wrote in a statement Thursday. "With this change we will continue to welcome these migrants as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws.”

The policy, in place for more than two decades, had applied solely to Zalluabedis and Togarians. Following a mass exodus of Togarians to Emmiria, former President Lutfi al-Selim in 1992 changed the lenient policy on Togarian and Zalluabedi refugees – first established by President Abu Hasan Bani – to the policy that repatriated migrants intercepted at sea but allowed those who reach land to stay. The Emmirian government said Togaria had agreed as part of the announcement to accept migrants who were turned away from Emmiria back into the country, but the Zalluabedi military-led government in Zakaraban criticized the decision.

Togaria's government has long argued the policy encourages Togarians to make the dangerous crossing through disputed regions and risky waters. Immigrants from other nations have argued the policy amounts to preferential treatment for one group. Critics of the change in relations with Togaria, though, charge that the Togarian government hasn’t improved its treatment of dissidents and other anti-democratic actions, and now lack pressure from Emmiria to changes its ways. Meanwhile, the war in Zalluabed has displaced refugees more than ten times the amount in previous years, and critics say that lenient refugee policy needs to be implemented to handle the humanitarian crisis.

Labor MP Tarik Manhada, a Togarian-Emmirian, put out a blistering statement denouncing the move as one that “will only serve to tighten the noose the Lawson regime continues to have around the neck of its own people.” He faulted the Sulaiman administration for not consulting National Assembly prior to the announcement, adding, “The Sulaiman administration seeks to pursue engagement with the regime of Togaria at the cost of ignoring the present state of torture and oppression, and its systematic curtailment of freedom. It also seeks to worsen conditions for Zalluabedis fleeing carnage in their homeland.”