PERCEPTIONS Country Report – Italy

Integration policy is based on a multilevel national working group in the Department of Civil Liberties and Immigration of the Ministry of the Interior. Regarding border control, police forces are involved under the coordination of the Ministry of the Interior. Expulsions of foreigners who represent a danger for public order and security or are illegally resident in the country can be issued by administrative authorities (Ministry of the Interior and Prefects) or by judicial authorities, as a consequence of a criminal proceeding. In recent decades, Italy has transformed from an emigration into an immigration country. The increase of immigration in Italy is strongly linked with the arrival of consistent inflows of labour migrants. The possibility to easily enter the labour market has constituted an important pull factor for migrants.

The growth of immigrant stock in the last years is due also to migration networks and family reunification, caused by the stabilization process of some communities. In 2016, the Italian Government and IOM launched the campaign Aware Migrants to dissuade potential newcomers from attempting the journey across the Mediterranean Sea. In the 2018 report, CENSIS depicts a generalized and sorrowful sense of the loss of national sovereignty, accompanied by an upsurge of fear of ‘the other’.