Migrants, today the vote on special protection. Here are all the numbers from Italy

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The migrant decree, containing urgent provisions on the legal entry flows of foreign workers and the prevention and fight against irregular immigration, returns to the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Senate this morning, after the night session on the vote on the amendments, which ended after 10.30 pm on you was. From 9 the voting resumed, with the obstructionism of the oppositions. The text awaited in the Chamber, from 16.30, will arrive without a mandate to the rapporteur, with a new vote on the amendments. On the majority front, the 21 amendments of the League remain standing, which reserves the right to present them in the Chamber, if the government’s interventions are not considered sufficient to remedy the issues on which Matteo Salvini’s party insists, not only therefore the tightening on the ‘protection special’, but also issues related to reception and expulsions. Maurizio Gasparri (Fi), the first signatory of the current majority “compromise” proposal, recalled that it was “urgent and indispensable” to intervene because “over the years, in fact, the instrumental use of humanitarian protection has practically implemented a permanent amnesty”.

The knot of special protection

At the center of the political game is therefore special protection. This is the residence permit issued in cases in which the Territorial Commission does not recognize the asylum-seeking foreign citizen either the refugee status or subsidiary protection, but believes the conditions exist to protect the person from expulsion or refoulement to a State in who may be subject to persecution (for reasons of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, language, citizenship, religion, political opinions, personal or social conditions), or there are reasonable grounds to believe that the foreigner, in the event of expulsion, risks being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.

Special protection numbers

But what are the numbers of special protection in Italy? In 2023, out of 19,000 decisions adopted so far by the territorial commissions on requests, 20% was for recognition of special protection (about 3,800 permits), 17% for recognition of asylum or subsidiary protection and 63% was for refusal. In 2022, on the other hand, out of around 59,000 decisions by the commissions, 19% was for recognition of special protection (just over 10,000 permits), compared to 25% for recognition of international protection. 56% of the decisions were instead of refusal.

The three forms of international protection

There are three main forms of international protection that a foreigner can request in Italy, from political asylum to subsidiary protection up to special protection, which could undergo significant changes in Parliament. According to the law currently in force, introduced by the center-right in 2018 (Salvini, Minister of the Interior), the protection special it can be requested by foreign citizens directly from the Questura or it is issued by the territorial commissions that examine the asylum application in the event that (according to article 19 of the Consolidated Immigration Act) there are no conditions for the granting of the main forms of international protection (asylum and subsidiary protection) but the person may be “subject to persecution” or if there are “reasonable reasons to believe that he/she risks being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment” . The mention of the residence permit “for humanitarian reasons” has been eliminated. It has been replaced by the enumeration of special permits for some particular reasons: for medical carefor the victims of violence or severe exploitationfor the victims of domestic violencein particular cases exploitation of the foreign workerwho has filed a complaint, for contingent situations and exceptional disastersFor deeds of particular civil value.

«The extension» of the special protection in 2020

An amendment to article 19 introduced in 2020 by the yellow-red M5s-Pd government (Conte premier and Lamorgese minister of the Interior) has also extended the prohibition of refoulement, expulsion or extradition even in the hypothesis of the risk of violation of the right to respect private and family life. The residence permit for special protection, which can also be converted into a work permit from 2020, lasts two years and its renewal is linked to a reassessment of the situation by a territorial commission. In short, with the entry into force of this decree law, the impossibility of rejecting those foreigners who in some way demonstrate that they have, among other things, put in place an integration within our country which is quite important from the point of view, has been extended. from a relational point of view, from an emotional life and so on.