Italy’s Interior Minister has said that 200,000 migrants have been prevented from reaching Italian shores since the country’s first female Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, took office two years ago.
Speaking to local news outlet La Stampa, Matteo Piantedosi said,“In 2024, we reduced the number of irregular arrivals by 60 percent compared to the year before and by 38 percent compared to 2022.”
Speaking of the policies put in place to achieve this result, he said, “It is a positive picture and the numbers bear that out,”he said.
Last year, 66,000 migrants reached Italy by sea compared to figures of 157,000 in 2023 and 105,000 in 2022.
Meloni came to power promising to secure Italy’s borders as well as move the country away from policies which did not strengthen the family, national pride, and border security.
Under her government the number of rejected asylum seekers who were returned to their home countries increased by 16 percent.
Piantedosi said, “These are the result of targeted policies… including close cooperation with the police forces of countries of origin and transit, which in two years have resulted in blocking the departure of 192,000 irregular migrants from Libya and Tunisia who were hoping to reach our shores.”
As part of the pledges Meloni made to cut the number of boats crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa, aid has been sent to Tunisia in exchange for that territory’s co-operation in stopping the flow of migrant boats leaving its shores bound for Italy.
As part of a deal brokered by the EU, The Meloni government has seen one billion euro in financial aid promised to the country.
Since the implementation of the policy, the Tunisian coast guard claims to have intercepted tens of thousands of migrants attempting to make the dangerous sea-crossing to Italy in order to claim asylum, although human rights groups have labelled this cooperation as “blackmail”.
In efforts to reduce the pressures of irregular migration on an already flooded system, the Meloni government has made a five year agreement with Albania to accommodate asylum claimants while they are processed by Italian authorities.
As Gript previously reported, The five-year agreement, estimated to cost 160 million euros annually, calls for male asylum seekers intercepted by the Italian navy or coast guard vessels in international waters—but within Italy’s search and rescue area—to be held in Albania. From there, a determination will be made as to which individuals come from ‘safe’ countries, allowing for fast-track repatriation.
Rome recently expanded to 22 countries its list of ‘safe’ countries of origin—defined as states where it deems there is no persecution, torture or threat of indiscriminate violence. On the list are nations that include areas not considered safe.
Elsewhere then Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, was acquitted by a Sicilian court on charges of “kidnapping” after he prevented a Spanish NGO boat carrying would-be asylum seekers from docking on Italian shores in 2019.
Salvini, who is now Deputy Prime Minister, said that he did not regret the decision which saw the migrant boat kept at sea for almost three weeks.
Salvini, who was acquitted on one charge of kidnap and one charge of dereliction of duty said that his actions were motivated by a desire to “protect Italy” telling reports outside the courthouse in Palermo that “I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,”.
At home, 2024 saw a 40% increase in people from around the world applying for asylum in Ireland. A total of 18,561 people applied for international protection here last year – which is the highest annual number since records began.
The record-breaking figure, provided by the Department of Justice to Newstalk, is 36% higher than the previous peak recorded in 2022, when 13,651 international protection applications were lodged, representing a 186% increase from 2019 (the last comparable year before Covid). It is also 40% higher than in 2023, when the number fell very slightly to 13,276 applications.
It means that more than 45,000 people have applied for asylum in the State in the last three years alone. Currently, there are 3,099 international protection applicants who have not been offered accommodation as the government struggles amid an unprecedented housing crisis. Asylum applications have risen by 300% compared to the same period five years ago.