Italy Tries to Cope with Rising Tide of Immigration from Africa

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Although African immigration is a “problem” across all of Europe, Italy and other Mediterranean countries are the most affected by this mass movement of people. Because of a 2003 European Union law called the Dublin II Regulation, the first European country an asylum seeker enters is solely responsible for the migrant’s protection and application. This places a disproportionate burden on countries like Italy, where hundreds of migrants fleeing Libya and Tunisia at the start of the revolution landed daily.

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This year in Italy, the swell of sub-Saharan Africans entering the country–many of them former migrant workers escaping violence in Libya, some refugees from the Tunisian revolt, others fleeing the famine in Somalia–became so great that there were riots on the island of Lampedusa, where thousands of migrants waited months to be processed by an apathetic government.

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Most the immigrants in Italy, as with most countries around the world, head to big cities. About 15 percent of the people in Milan were foreign-born immigrants in 2009, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics; while in Rome, about 10 percent of the population is non-Italian. {snip}

{snip} In general, the majority of people seeking asylum in Italy get rejected, forcing them either to await an eventual deportation or to enter Europe illegally.

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Additionally, Silvio Berlusconi’s government has tried to crack down on illegal immigration, starting with those already in Italy. In 2009, Italian legislators made entering or staying in the country illegally a criminal act punishable by a fine of $7,000-$14,000. Moreover, any landlord caught renting to an illegal immigrant faces up to three years in prison.

Berlusconi even said that these measures were so that a “multi-ethnic Italy” couldn’t happen.

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