Migrations, structural phenomenon: the illusion of the “block of departures” masks the emptiness of reception

ROME – The massacre in the sea that took place last Sunday, a few meters from the Calabrian coast and the consequent statements by the interior minister Piantedosi – reads a report by Openpolisan independent foundation that promotes projects for access to public information, transparency and democratic participation – have contributed to keeping the attention of the public debate high on the departures and arrivals of migrants, after already at the beginning of the year if it was mentioned in connection with the “anti-NGO decree”.

The exogenous factors of migrations. However, an element that is rarely considered in the confused and often poorly informed public debate on migration concerns a fact that should always represent an essential premise: the number of arrivals in Italy and in Europe is linked above all to exogenous factors such as wars, persecutions , violence, climate change and natural disasters. The policies of individual European countries, especially if short-term, can only have a marginal effect on this.

The “Centres of Italy” Project and Piantedosi’s words. What can really be influenced through national public policies is the way in which the people who have arrived integrate and are included in the social, civil, educational and working reality of our country. We have been talking about this for years now through the Centers of Italy projectcreated in partnership with ActionAid Italy. These are the aspects that we also analyzed through the survey “The emptiness of hospitality“. At the beginning of the year, the so-called “anti-NGO decree” polarized once again the attention of public opinion on the migratory phenomenon, in particular on the central Mediterranean route. In the face of all this, the words by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, which sparked a lot of controversy: “Despair – said Salvini’s former chief of cabinet when he was at the Viminale – can never justify travel conditions that endanger the lives of one’s children” .

Landings in the first weeks of 2023. In the first weeks of this year less than 7,000 people landed on Italian shores. 6,834 people landed on the Italian coasts from 1 January to 15 February 2023. An increase compared to the same period of 2022 (when there were just over 4 thousand arrivals) but still far from the first two months of 2017, when they entered Italy via sea ​​over 13 thousand people. We are faced with figures that describe flows of people looking for a better life in Europe. Numbers certainly not sufficient to fully tell stories that are often difficult but of those who nevertheless made it, compared to the thousands of shipwrecked people who only died along the migratory routes last year.

Migrations structural phenomenon: fewer blocks, more welcome. Whether the data tell of arrivals in the first months of the year, or the reception system in Italy in 2021 – the year covered by the analysis of “The vacuum of reception” – the facts confirm what we have been saying for years: the migratory phenomenon is considered ordinary and structural, and as such must be governed. That is to say that the reception system for migrants who arrive in our country, seeking asylum or refuge, must also be ordinary. More than the “block of departures” politics should affect the quality of reception. The extraordinary system has been placed before the ordinary one for years, the integration reception system (You know). The latter, in fact, between 2018 and 2021 even lost over a thousand seats, despite a sharp drop in arrivals and a consequent loss of more than 70 thousand seats in the centers of the country. The ordinary system should represent the practice. Only once saturated should one turn to the extraordinary centers.

The decline in numbers was not taken advantage of. In short, it would have been possible to take advantage of the drastic decrease in numbers in the reception of asylum seekers and refugees to definitively strengthen the Sai, thus ensuring greater social inclusion for guests in the centres, more integration with the host communities and a more widespread reception on the territory . Instead, not only has this road not been taken at all, but the Cas have become bigger and bigger on average over time. It is no coincidence, in fact, that between 2018 and 2021, small centers represented the center category that lost the most seats: as many as 23,917.

Less than one municipality out of 4 interested in accogiiere. This also had repercussions on the distribution of reception of asylum seekers and refugees in the area. Less than one municipality out of 4 (precisely 23.2%) in 2021 was affected by the establishment of a centre, be it prefectural competence (Cas or first reception centres) or pertaining to the public ownership system (Sai). The closure of thousands of centers has led to a greater concentration of migrants especially in some large metropolitan cities.

The territories with the most places available in 2021 are:

– the metropolitan cities of Rome (3,796,

– Turin (3,637)

– Milan (3,524)

– Bologna (2,579)

– Naples (2,578).

Overall, there were over 16,000 places in facilities in these five metropolitan cities in 2021, accounting for 16.5% of the total places in the country.

The independence of the migrants on the population is 0,…%. The impact of posts on the population in these territories is very relative, as indeed throughout the country. Suffice it to say that as of 31 December 2021, the approximately 77,000 people hosted in the Centers of Italy they represented 0.13% of the Italian population. A percentage that only rose to 0.22% if we consider only the citizens residing in the municipalities where there were centers (about 35.9 million people). To give an example, in the metropolitan city of Rome the incidence of seats on the resident population was 0.12%. Numbers which, in addition to denying any instrumental “invasion theory”, should push public decision-makers to organize the reception system in a less unfair and more efficient and virtuous way, to the advantage of migrants’ rights and their inclusion in local communities .