ROME (AP) – Italy’s right-wing government has advanced plans to crack down on hundreds of migrants who arrived in Sicilian ports on Monday after a coast guard rescue, with dozens more run by smugglers. Brought aboard a charity boat from an unseaworthy vessel, others landed unaided.
This week, the Senate is set to take up legislation from a government led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This will make it more difficult for immigrants to obtain temporary residence permits in Italy.
Coalition partner Matteo Salvini, who heads the anti-immigrant party, said the state would grant what is known as “special protection” status to many of the tens of thousands of migrants who have landed in Italy over the years on smuggling ships from Libya.
This status allows an immigrant who is unlikely to obtain refugee status to stay in Italy for two years until renewed. During this time, they can work legally and rent an apartment.
Salvini argues that the possibility of “special protection” acts as a “driving factor” encouraging migrants to leave their home countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.Many of the migrants live in sub-Saharan Africa. , North Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt fleeing poverty and lack of decent jobs.
But on Monday, two humanitarian groups, Alarm Phone, which monitors migrant ships in distress in the Mediterranean, and Emergency, which operates rescue boats, tweeted that Malta had instructed cargo ships to come and rescue some boats. and the rescued passengers later become the archipelago’s exit.
On Sunday, Alarm Phone said there were about 60 migrants in total on her two wrecked boats.
Others arrived in Catania late Sunday night on a ship owned by Frontex, the European Union’s border security agency.
Also on Sunday, an Italian naval vessel carried about 300 rescued migrants to another Sicilian port, Augusta, Italian media reported.
Arriving unaided, dozens of other immigrants landed on the tiny island of Lampedusa. Among them were some who found residents of a small tourist and fishing island strolling along the beach.
Separately, Emergency said rescue vessel life support rescued 55 migrants from a smuggled vessel on Saturday. She lamented that Italy had allocated ports on Italy’s northwest coast to carry passengers.
Allocating far-flung disembarkation points is part of the Meloni government’s strategy. Salvini points out that the charity boat essentially acts as a “taxi service” for smuggling operations, encouraging more people to attempt the dangerous crossing of the central Mediterranean. As of Sunday evening, the center housing migrants in Lampedusa was holding about 800 people, almost double its supposed capacity. Migrants are housed there and then transferred to other parts of Italy while their asylum claims are processed.
The Meloni government last week responded to the influx of migrants by cutting back on the time it takes to fund and set up new shelters and repatriation centers for those who have lost asylum claims, mainly by reducing the time it takes to set up a state for six months. declared a state of emergency.
As of Monday, about 33,000 migrants have arrived so far, compared with about 8,500 each during the same period over the past two years.
Valerio Valenti, a longtime interior ministry official who heads the immigration service, was appointed commissioner to lead the emergency response on Sunday. Governors of four left-leaning regions immediately rejected the appointment, saying they would not cooperate with his plans to open new shelters and return centers.
