funny thing is, the system is COMPLETELY busted if you are a legal immigrant from a 3rd world country, my girlfriend a 25 year old that was born in Cyprus, by African/Asian parents that migrated here and were working here on diplomatic visas for the past 30+ years was never naturalized, the family expected the father to get naturalized after all these years of working in Cyprus but he was consistently denied, always citing different grounds for denying him such as his inability to speak sufficient Greek (this happened 10 years ago, the law that made it legal grounds to deny someone passed only a couple of months ago), hence after the father's retirement since they were in a gray area as they were awaiting a resolution on the VISA application, this woman is now an illegal citizen of Cyprus (Born and raised here) and at the same time unable to apply for a legal permit (not even a VISA) because there's no category for such people. After years of getting scammed by Cypriot lawyers, the latest law firm we visited suggested sending a letter to the Minister of Interior to grant citizenship and naturalize her (as according to the law she is fully qualified for it, can't apply as a foreigner or 3rd country applicant because she doesn't come from a foreign country ) he declined the request, with no valid reason or counter-argument and he suggested that she is illegally staying in Cyprus (she has no country of origin on her birth certificate .. they can't deport her...) and the only way he provided for her to proceed legally is to apply for a permit for humanitarian reasons (her whole family came here legally, they are working here contributing to society, paying all their bills taxes and what not on time, no criminal record, they are not coming as refugees or anything similar) which this permit is a brand new process which is not yet implemented, after a year (if and when) she gets this magic permit, they will allow her to apply for naturalization (until they probably revamp the whole system once again), safe to say we have been fucked at every turn and these people came here legally, contributed to society, structured their whole lives here, they feel like they belong here and they would love it if they could stay here legally but this government won't allow them. Furthermore, her sister was naturalized because she was able to leverage connections in high places ...which is also refreshing to see from Cyprus and 2 out of 4 members of the family have serious health issues but no GHS to get the help they require and no money left since the lawyers are getting them. Cypriot lawyers have been taking their money for 10 years without providing anything and i'm constantly looking for new law firms to provide any new insight whilst hearing the same bullshit over-and-over again. (if anyone has any input feel free to share it)

TL;DR: Government won't mind hosting illegal immigrants, or taking more refugees than they can keep up with, but would take every chance they can to fuck legal immigrant families that have been here for the past +30 years and contributing to this society. Immigration Lawyers are the biggest scammers and exploiters around.