Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Italy pushes crackdown on migrants reaching its shores

Italy pushes crackdown on migrants reaching its shores

Italy’s right-wing government pressed ahead with plans to crack down on migrants as they arrived by the hundreds on Monday at a Sicilian port after a coast guard rescue. Dozens more were taken on board a charity boat from an unseaworthy vessel operated by smugglers, while others came ashore unaided.
This week, the Senate is due to take up proposed legislation put forward by the government of far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni that aims to make it harder for migrants to gain temporary permission to stay in Italy.

Coalition ally Matteo Salvini, who leads the anti-migrant League party, wants the country to eliminate a status known as “special protection” for many of the tens of thousands of migrants who have come ashore in Italy for years now aboard smugglers’ boats launched from Libya, Tunisia, Turkiye and other places.

That status allows migrants who are unlikely to win refugee status to stay in Italy for two years, pending renewal. During this time, they can work legally and rent housing.

Salvini claims the possibility of “special protection” acts as a “pull factor,” in encouraging migrants to leave their homelands in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Many of the migrants are fleeing poverty or a lack of decent jobs in sub-Saharan Africa, northern Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt.

While Meloni has said she’d like to see that status eliminated, lawmakers from another coalition party, Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia, have indicated they could push for the time to be slashed from two years to six months.

“It’s not so much a question of numbers, but of (sending) a signal of severity that we want to give,” Maurizio Gasparri, a prominent Forza Italia senator was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera on Monday.

The number of migrants arriving this spring has risen relentlessly.

A Italian coast guard boat with about 200 migrants aboard pulled into the harbor of Catania, Sicily early Monday. They were among some 600 migrants rescued by the coast guard during the weekend in Malta’s search-and-rescue sector of the Mediterranean.

For years, humanitarian groups have lamented that Maltese authorities often ignore distress calls from foundering migrant vessels.

But on Monday, two humanitarian organizations, Alarm Phone, which monitors migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean, and Emergency, which operates a rescue vessel, tweeted that Malta had instructed cargo ships to come to the aid of a couple of boats, and that the rescued passengers would disembark later in the archipelago nation.

On Sunday, Alarm Phone indicated there were a total of about 60 migrants on the two distressed boats.

The others arrived in Catania late Sunday night aboard a vessel operated by Frontex, the European Union’s border protection agency.

Also on Sunday, an Italian naval vessel brought about 300 rescued migrants to another Sicilian port, Augusta, Italian media said.

Stepping ashore on the tiny island of Lampedusa were scores of other migrants who arrived unaided. Among them were several spotted walking on a beach by residents of the tiny tourist and fishing isle.

Separately, Emergency said its rescue ship, Life Support, on Saturday had plucked to safety 55 migrants from a smugglers’ boat. It lamented that Italy had assigned a port on Italy’s northwestern coast to bring the passengers, lengthening the time until the migrants could step on land as well as the days the charity vessel would need to return to the area of the sea plied by migrant smugglers.

Assigning disembarkation points far away is part of the Meloni government’s strategy. Salvini rails that charity boats essentially serve as “taxi services” for smuggling operations and encourage more people to attempt the dangerous crossing of the central Mediterranean.

By Sunday night, the center which shelters migrants on Lampedusa held nearly 800 people, nearly double its supposed capacity. The migrants are accommodated there before being transferred elsewhere in Italy while their claims for asylum are processed.

Meloni’s government last week declared a six-month national state of emergency to help cope with the influx of migrants, mainly by shortening the time need to fund or erect new housing or repatriation centers for those losing asylum bids.

By Monday, roughly 33,000 migrants had arrived in the year to date, compared to about 8,500 the same period in each of the last two years.

On Sunday, a longtime interior ministry official, Valerio Valenti, who heads an immigration office, was tapped to be the commissioner leading the emergency response. The governors of four left-led regions immediately refused to back the appointment, indicating they wouldn’t work with whatever his plans would be to open new housing or repatriation centers.

How their pushback would affect Valenti’s efficiency wasn’t immediately clear.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Budapest Post
Close
0:00
0:00
The Fed fixing the economy
Corporations standing up for “LGDP-LGT-LBG-LGBTQ2+ kids” during ‘Pride Month’ be like:
A Major Ukrainian Hydroelectric Dam BLOWN UP
US and European Intelligence Agencies Uncover Evidence of Ukrainian Role in Terror Attack on Nord Stream Pipeline
The driver has been described by authorities as a 21-year-old woman from Tallahassee
Joe Biden falls at the Air Force Graduation
America's Got Talent…
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Hold Power Talks with President Biden in Washington
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Climate cultists thought they had sabotaged another beautiful event — then the cameraman had his revenge.
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
WATCH THIS: democracy in Russia is so bad!
Ed Davey: It is possible for a woman to have a penis
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Steve Jobs introducing Apple's iPhone, exactly 16 years ago.
China overtakes Japan as world's top car exporter
Elon Musk's SpaceX and Italy's Unipol join forces to help Italians hit by flooding
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received a warm welcome at an Arab summit in Jeddah
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
Vienna: Passenger Plays Hitler Speeches on Train, Causes Panic
The official tapes of Trump's deposition in the E. Jean Carroll battery (rape) and defamation case have been released.
King Charles III being crowned.
Newly released video of Donald Trump’s rape trial deposition:
Video: Ukraine MP Punches Russian Representative At Global Meet
El Paso mayor has declared a state of emergency
Russia accused Ukraine of attacking the Kremlin with drones in an attempt to kill Putin
×