Italy's bad news for Albanian immigrants

Italian Interior Minister Mateo Salvini, from the far-right Italian, has declared that one of the main priorities of the new populist party will be the “delivery home” of immigrants, signaling that I will keep an electoral promise to expel hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

The political chaos that has wrapped Italy in recent weeks stems from allegations created for the new government, which was formalised Friday and is being run by a completely unknown prime minister, Giuseppe Cteon. The main question is whether this government will follow a tough policy in terms of fiscal obligations in Brussels.

But Salvin's rise in power, by the former leader of a radio show already in the most important government post within Italy, which controls the country's security, human rights, migration, asylum and elections, could lead to a dramatic change.

Hours after Italian President Sergio Mattarella decreed the new government, Salvin said Italy would take a harsher stance.

It will open the doors to good people, and return those who have come to Italy to riot. One of their top priorities will be to return them home”, he said.

Salvin, who heads Lega Nord, the extreme nationalist right who has been in favour of Italy's division, has promised to expel about 500,000 immigrants living in Italy illegally.

Although this rhetoric has sparked concerns among immigration experts and humanitarian groups, so far it has been seen as an unrealistic agenda, because Italy has not had sufficient resources or even legal flexibility to carry out mass expulsions.

Migration experts, contacted by Guardian, are still alarmed by Salvin's appointment. They fear that the rights of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees will be dramatically lost in a country where they are now facing difficulties to accommodate and integrate with local communities.

Calogero Santoro is the leader of Girasoli, a non-profit organisation that promotes the integration of migrants and refugees into the local communities of Sicily. He says: “during the recent election campaign has spread false news to immigrants throughout Italy. My concern is the future of asylum seekers, people who deserve refugee status. What will happen to those under Salvin's direction?

Santoro added: “This is what scares me. The previous government agreement with Tripoli is making the lives of these people increasingly difficult in Libya. Now Salvin can make life impossible for them in Italy. ”

Santoro refers to an agreement between Italy and Libya, through which the Italians train Libya's coastal guards, who have stopped boats with immigrants and have returned to Libya's camps people who were trying to travel to Europe. The agreement has been condemned by human rights advocates. There have been many reports that have described the inhumane conditions, rapes, and other physical abuses that take place there.

Migration experts are also concerned about the fact that Salvin may lower funding for waiting centres, which have already been criticised by human rights groups in terms. This would make the lives of immigrants in Italy even more difficult.

My “Frica is that no migrants' waiting centers in Italy return to urgangola, similar to Cale, France, which make immigrants invisible to the public”, said Fulvio Vassalo, an expert on asylum laws, from the University of Palermos.

Salcin has also suggested turning reception centres into detention centres, and changing the destination of many funds to carry out mass expulsions. With current regulations, every immigrant expelled by plane must be accompanied by two Italian agents, which costs about 3,000 Euros. A recent study by L '%Espresso says Salvin's plan to expel 500,000 immigrants would cost 1.5 billion euros.

Pierre Vimont, a French diplomat who works with the expert group “Carnegie Europe”, said the Italian government could violate international refugee laws and EU laws if it continues with the promise to expel hundreds of thousands of immigrants, risking even violating the Geneva convention.

If the new Italian government says I don't want to know, I don't accept refugees, they can violate the “international convention, he said, referring to the principle of “non rephoon”, which does not allow states to send refugees to areas where they may be endangered.

Vimont, who has led negotiations between Africa and the EU, for the creation of funds that would reduce the number of migrants, said it seems ridiculous that this government thinks it has the answers to problems that have saved other European governments for 20 years.

The problem with the populist attitude is that they have convinced their electors that these things can be solved overnight. This has never happened, especially with the integration”, Vimont added.

Sandro Gozi, former Italian Minister for Europe, said the EU had given ammunition to populist parties against migration, not helping Italy cope with the large number of migrants. “Europe could and should have done more”, Gozi tells the Guardian in a recent interview. “The populist agenda has been helped by the fact that Italians have felt abandoned”.

The EU has spent more than two years to improve asylum demand laws, otherwise called “Rule of Dublin”. There are major divisions for refugee removal from one EU state to another. Central European and Eastern European states, led by Poland and Hungary, say they will never accept admission quotas for immigrants. Several southern states, such as Italy and Greece, say they have been left alone to face the entire influx of immigrants.

The issue will be addressed in June, after European Council President Donald Tusk asked for an agreement to be established or completely abandoned with mandatory accession quotas.

“Vones with implementation of migrants' shift has been politically devastating”, Gozi says. “Not because the shift would have solved the migration crisis, but because it showed that the Visegrad group refuses to pay any price. ”

Bulgaria, which is managing the negotiations, is trying to push the countries towards a compromise, but Mediterranean states are not satisfied with forced quotas. “We are taking steps back in terms of solidarity and accountability”, an EU diplomat said.