This financial guarantee is intended to cover a person’s housing and living expenses for one month, as well as the costs of their repatriation in the event of a final rejection of their application.
The measure sparked condemnation from the left-wing opposition. Migrants denied the right to asylum in Italy will have to pay 5,000 euros, otherwise they will be sent to a detention center while their appeal is examined, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette, which drew condemnation on Friday from the opposition left-wing.
This financial guarantee, described by the left-wing daily La Repubblica as a “ransom”, amounting to exactly 4,938 euros, is intended to cover the housing and living expenses of a person for a month, as well as cover the costs of repatriation in the event of the final rejection of his application.
This applies both to people who have tried to circumvent border controls and to people who come from a so-called “safe” country and are therefore fundamentally unable to apply for asylum. In the event of an “unlawful disappearance” of the applicant, the deposit paid by him will be confiscated, it says in the text.
“The government (…) is now losing its dignity”
The measure was sharply criticized by the left. “The government had already lost face on immigration, now it is losing its dignity by filling the coffers [de l’Etat] on the backs and desperation of the people,” lamented Democratic MP Emiliano Fossi.
“A bank guarantee to be paid by migrants if they have not drowned in the Mediterranean,” commented the mayor of Bergamo, Giorgio Gori (Democratic Party, left), on his “X” account, recalling that Italy “24 Millions of people have emigrated.” Migrants are swarming around the world.”
The government is “filling the coffers.” [de l’Etat] on the backs and desperation of the people,” lamented MP Emiliano Fossi, from the same party.
For his part, Riccardo Magi, national secretary of the centrist +Europe party, condemned what he calls “institutional human trafficking.”
In 2023, 130,000 migrants will arrive in Italy
This decree comes just days after the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni announced that it would increase the maximum period of detention for rejected applicants to 18 months, compared to the current 40 renewable days (maximum 138 days).
In this way, the executive wants to prevent emigration from North Africa and prevent the Italian authorities from being legally obliged to release foreigners with the decision to deport them to the border if the expulsion procedure was not successful within the stipulated period.
Since September 11, Italy has registered more than 15,000 arrivals of migrants from the North African coast to its shores, most of them landing on the island of Lampedusa, whose reception facilities were overwhelmed. Since the start of the year, their number is nearly 130,000, compared to 68,200 in the same period in 2022, according to the Interior Ministry.
The migrants who have arrived in Lampedusa in recent days have almost all been transferred to Sicily or the continent and on Friday there were only about a hundred left in the island’s reception center, which has space for 400. Departures from Tunisia and Libya slowed down over the weekend.