The exorbitant cost of the first deportation of migrants from Italy to Albaniathat they were only 16 of the 1,000 that arrived in Lampedusa that day and the fact that their disembarkation ended with the return to Italy of four of them has shown that the controversial plan of the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni has leaked from the first day. Two Bangladeshis were minors and two Egyptians were in a situation of extreme vulnerability, psychological or physical, and cannot enter the rapid protocol that is being applied. Some of the criticisms have been confirmed which already pointed out possible problems, such as the most basic and starting point of this procedure: the way in which the migrants who are sent to the Gjadër detention center, in Albania, are selected. He Albania model It has been presented as an experiment, which the EU is following closely to see if it works or not, thinking about expanding it from now on.
“We were right in what we already warned: the selection has not worked. Of 16 people, four were minors or vulnerable. A quarter of those who arrived. What will happen when there are 400 people?” asked Italian deputy Riccardo Magi, from the More Europe party, on Thursday morning, at the door of the Italian complex. He is part of a delegation of three opposition parliamentarians – along with Rachele Scarpa, from the Democratic Party (PD), and Paolo Ciani, from Democracy Solidarity -, who has traveled to Gjadër. Talking about the cost of everything he Albania model, Ciani pointed out: “We have heard a lot about this as an experiment. “Experiments are not done on people, nor on vulnerable people.”
Around 12 noon they entered the premises to inspect it and obtain information, but before seeing anything they were already very critical. “Italy had not had foreign prison colonies outside its territory since World War II,” Magi warned. When they left, four hours later, they saw it even worse. The deputy assured that the place “has all the characteristics and semblance of a concentration camp.”
Inside they heard, they say, “tremendous stories” after speaking with four of the deportees, three Egyptians and a Bangladeshi. One spent the entire conversation crying, because he had not yet been able to talk to his family, wife and children, who are still in Egypt. They have reported that the four have been prisoners in Libya, from four months to one year and up to two years. They suffered beatings and torture. Forced labor in conditions of slavery. Escape attempts, aborted by the Libyan coast guard and then, return to hell. In addition to the trip, their families have had to pay large sums of money as ransom to be released, up to 10,000 euros in the case of the Egyptians and 19,000 in the case of the Bangladeshi. “All of this has not been considered in the exam, the personal history of each individual, and we hope that it will be done,” says Magi.
The three deputies wanted to know, above all, what guarantee had been followed in the process and they came away very upset. They have pointed out that the selection of deportees has now become simply called “pre-selection,” to indicate a more superficial method. “It’s all very confusing and there are many things to clarify,” he summarizes.
A rushed process
This previous exam to choose from the deportees It is the first link where the chain of Albania model. Only people with this profile can enter the controversial rapid asylum management protocol in 28 days, introduced a year and a half ago, and then move to Gjadër: healthy adult men who have been rescued at sea by Italian ships – not by NGOs or those who have arrived by their own means―and who come from states considered safe. Determining the age and country of these people, who often do not carry documents, is sometimes very problematic, requiring medical examinations, in-depth conversations with translators and cultural mediators. That is why it is advisable to take them ashore and spend the necessary days. In this case, the process has failed with four out of 16, due to the rush.
What has most impressed the deputies is that almost the only and main criterion of discrimination seems to have been that these people did not have passports or documents, something that allows them to be included in the rapid protocol. They didn’t have them, they say, because they had been stolen in Libya. The delegation, which has confirmed that this first examination is carried out by Italian officials and agents, together with staff from the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations, has detected more problems. They want to ask for details of the routes of the rescued boats and verify at which point they were helped, since some “would have been very close to Lampedusa, and not in international waters, as provided by law, this is very serious and must be verified.”
They claim that one of the deportees has said that if he had known that he was being sent to Albania, he would have reached the coast by swimming, because they were close. What’s more, two of the migrants claim that the boat that saved them then retreated into the sea until it reached Pound, the military ship that took them to Albania. Some only understood that they were sailing towards a non-EU country when they were already on their way, that is, they were not correctly informed.
In addition to the complication of the procedure, the place where it is done is also important. It is carried out on a ship converted into a kind of floating office-lodge, which is on the high seas, because if it touched land it would have to disembark the castaways in Italy. Furthermore, until the tender for a ship is resolved, with a planned capacity for 200 migrants, the task has begun to be carried out by a military ship, the Pound. The fact that, to begin with, it is now a Navy ship has also been criticized, because it does not meet the appropriate conditions for the mission. Scarpa believes that “a gray and ambiguous area of law is created, which can give rise to many human rights violations.” “How can the selection be carried out on a military ship, which is not the place to do it, an adequate assessment of a person’s vulnerability. This has obviously no longer been done,” he concludes.
But the key procedure is that once selected, a judge must validate their detention at the border within 48 hours. The 12 deported migrants requested asylum on Wednesday night, the parliamentary delegation confirmed. The judge now analyzes, above all, that they come from countries considered safe, but here a ruling from the Court of Justice of the EU has emerged that has cut Italy’s list of those States from 22 to 7. And it has left out all the main countries of origin of irregular migration to Italy: Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia or Libya, for example. The 12 deported migrants who are now in the Gjadër internment camp are from Bangladesh and Egypt and a judge will decide on Friday whether or not to validate the application of the rapid protocol to them. If you reject it, these 12 people will also have to return to Italy. That is, the entire first operation of presentation of the Albania model would fail: none of the 16 deported migrants would have stayed in the country.
Everything suggests – also that the Gjadër center is only half built, with 352 places, plus 24 in the repatriation area and 12 in a small prison – that the start of the deportations has been carried out hastily. The opposition believes that it was already five months late and Meloni wanted to release it before the European summit on Thursday, where immigration is precisely addressed, with a special focus on Albania model. “This is an ideological manifesto, it is not something related to the reception of migrants,” reflects Ciani.
Experts also point out that, with the percentages of repatriations actually carried out, the reality is that the vast majority of deportees will end up returning to Italy. They will not be able to wait forever in an area that may end up becoming saturated. Furthermore, completed procedures take between three and six months. According to Eurostat, in the first half of 2024 Italy has issued 13,330 repatriation orders, but has only managed to expel 2,035. The rest receive a paper with the order, but they simply disappear, or wait in centers that are already very overwhelmed.
“It’s all absurd. There is no deterrent effect, because with these percentages, in the most optimistic hypothesis, if 12,000 people arrive in Albania, as is being calculated, Italy will not be able to repatriate more than 1,200,” says Matteo Villa, researcher at the ISPI institute in Milan. “In addition, the cost will be nine times higher than what we pay in Italy, and all so that, in one estimate, only 15% of all those who arrive in Italy will be deported to Albania, and of those, 13% will end up anyway in Italy and only 2%, repatriated. That is to say, 98% of all those who arrive will end up in one way or another in Italy.”
