Italy is tightening its immigration policy after last week’s chaos on the island of Lampedusa, where thousands of migrants disembarked in boats from the coasts of North Africa in just three days. The Italian executive, led by Giorgia Meloni, gave the green light this Monday to build new immigration detention centersunder which people who enter the transalpine country irregularly can be detained for up to 18 months before being deported.
The transalpine country currently has 10 centers for the permanent accommodation and repatriation of irregular immigrants, similar to the Spanish detention centers for foreigners (CIE), which are also in a dilapidated state in many cases. That is the goal of the Italian government Each region has its own Repatriation Permanence Center (CPR, acronym in Italian), where immigrants are held while they await repatriation. A waiting period that could be extended from the current 12 months to a year and a half, the maximum time allowed by Community legislation.
These new centers will be built in places with very low population densities “Simply fence and monitor” in order to “not create more discomfort or insecurity in the cities”. Disused Defense Ministry buildings, such as old barracks or prisons, can also be reused.
So far this year approx 130,000 immigrants have arrived in Italyalmost twice as many as in the same period in 2022, while 2,500 people were repatriated in the first seven months of the year, 28% more than in the same period last year, according to Italian Interior Ministry data.
Meloni had announced the new rules approved by the Council of Ministers a few days earlier in a video in which he promised to adopt them “extraordinary measures” to address the emergency in Lampedusa and called for a joint mission to block ships from North Africa, while arguing that the European Union needed “a paradigm shift” to deal with the migration crisis. A proposal supported by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who announced a European plan to deter migrants trying to enter Europe irregularly during her visit to the island with the Italian Prime Minister the day before.
European action
“The presence of President Ursula von der Leyen in Lampedusa on Sunday is also very important from a symbolic point of view,” assured Meloni during the Council of Ministers. “Europe’s presence at the borders most exposed to mass illegal immigration underlines this Lampedusa is not only an Italian border, but also a European border“he added.
The Italian government’s goal now is to achieve this Release of aid supplies to Tunisia as an incentive to stop the departure of boats from their ports promised by the EU. The pact signed in July with President Kais Said, similar to the one concluded in the past with Libya and intended to reduce the number of immigrants arriving on the Italian coast in exchange for a payment of around 100 million euros, was rejected by the progressive bloc in Italy The European Parliament denouncing “a strategic alliance” with the Tunisian president is accused of failing to respect human rights in its country.
The Italian Prime Minister directly accused the European Socialists and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs of Josep Borrell, “to do everything possible to terminate the agreement for reasons “ideological or, even worse, for political reasons” He defended that “none of the North African countries is a safe state with which it is possible to stop emigration or repatriate illegal immigrants.” “In essence, the will of the Left is to make massive illegal immigration inevitable,” denounced Meloni.
From Lampedusa the day before, the President of the European Commission supported Meloni’s strategy defended the acceleration of the disbursement of financial aid to TunisiaAlthough last week the Tunisian authorities prevented the entry into their territory of a delegation of MPs who were supposed to carry out an on-site review of the political situation in the North African country.