Earlier this month, protesters supported by local governments led the gates of a former military base in Minoa Pediada, near the town of Heraklion on Crete, Greece.
The gesture was symbolic of opposition to the community's Greek government program amid the growing number of refugees and migrants arriving on boats sailing from North Africa.
On July 7 alone, 581 people were rescued by the Greek coast guard and attempted to arrive at Crete and Gabdos, Greece's southernmost islands.
“We are sought a solution to that problem and demonstrate the will of the community that instead receives something new and more difficult,” city officials Minoa Pedida, whose mayor was previously a MP for the Pasok Party, said on Facebook. “We say 'No' to immigration facilities. ”
Stung by the backlash, Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitotakis's conservative new democratic government began to move on with the plan, but only one of the increasingly hardline policies on immigration.
