Italy and Migration: Justice on this Side of the Mediterranean

A country of emigration in the past, at the end of the last century Italy turned into a country of immigration, a major receiver of asylum seekers, a first-entry gateway into the European Union and a relevant element of the Schengen system as a whole. This progressive shift has been strongly affected by some of the country’s peculiarities, by the incapability to properly step up to the demands of its role and by the divisiveness of the issue itself. The result has been a radicalization of political positions and the restriction of space for a fully-fledged and coherent debate on migration, making it all the more difficult to unify security and humanitarian objectives. While the obvious victims of this state of affairs are the migrants themselves, the country is drawing no benefits: public opinion is becoming increasingly hostile to policies which are not only in line with Italy’s norms and values but which would also contribute to the country’s future economic and demographic challenges. While migrants’ potentialities are still not given due consideration, the issue is still ensnared within the question of control.