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Immigration see-saw causes rows in parliament

All of article 19 of the immigration bill that has sown controversy since Wednesday has been withdrawn. The article will be tendered again next week after it is fully revised.

The withdrawal was preceded by intense deliberations between the governing parties and after communication of government vice president Evangelos Venizelos and prime minister Antonis Samaras in Brussels, who is in Brussels.

The cause was the refusal of interior minister Yannis Michelakis to rescind a clause that called for the deportation of immigrants that falsely accused authorities of racist behavior.

Deputy interior minister Leonidas Grigoratos had taken the initiative to withdraw the clause to the immigration bill, which interior minister Yannis Michelakis reinstated.

This caused an outburst from PASOK parliamentary spokesman Paris Koukoulopoulos, who more or less implied that anyone accepting the article would have to be “lobotomized.”

Mr Michelakis noted that illegal immigrants were schooled by traffickers to claim police brutality if approached by security forces., and retorting to SYRIZA spokesman Panayotis Lafazanis who spoke of a government far-right wing agenda, Mr Michelakis acerbically noted that “some are allergic to uniforms.”