Italy cracks down on immigrants
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Thursday, May 15, 2008
ROME: Underscoring the new Italian government's determination to crack down on illegal immigration and crime, the authorities this week arrested hundreds of people in a massive sweep of shantytowns in major urban areas across the country.
The police said Wednesday that 118 people were immediately expelled and nearly 400 arrested. An additional 111 were accused of immigration crimes - 180 on thievery or prostitution charges, and 92 connected with drug dealing. Those arrested Thursday included 50 Moroccans and 32 Romanians.
The widely publicized raids were a signal from Italy's new rightist government, which includes the anti-immigrant Northern League Party, that it planned to pursue tougher policies toward immigrants.
"The anti-immigrant sweep was a positive thing, because that's what people want," said Umberto Bossi, the new government's minister of institutional reforms and federalism. "People ask us for safety and we must give it to them."
The raids reflected a growing anti-immigrant sentiment among electorates and governing rightist parties in European countries from Italy to France and the Netherlands - a sentiment that has in part grown out of the Continent's economic stagnation.
"Never again, illegal immigrants under your house!" proclaims the platform of the People of Liberty Party, which won Italy's national elections last month.
It went on: "Empty illegal camps and get rid of nomads who have no residence and no means of subsistence."
Just this week a crowd of several hundred Italians attacked a Roma camp on the eastern outskirts of Naples, brandishing sticks and throwing firebombs, after a 16-year-old Roma girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.
"Out, out!" they yelled, according to Italian news reports. "You're dirty and smelly and rob babies."
But as of 2008, such anti-immigrant sentiments have become harder to square with the European Union's open-border policy, which gives EU citizens the right to settle anywhere within its member states.
In January, Bulgaria and Romania were admitted to the EU and their citizens can now live legally in Italy without any special permit. The vast majority of Roma have Romanian passports, though Roma represent only a small fraction of Romanians in Italy.
"The Roma, as well, are European citizens, and as a consequence of that their rights should be assured," Cristian David, Romania's interior minister, said at a conference in Rome on Thursday about the police sweep.
More to the point, immigrants are now an essential labor force in Italy - as well as in many West European nations, most of which face aging populations and extraordinarily low birth rates.
"Industry would close without them, especially the Romanians and especially small and medium firms," said Antonio Ricci, an immigration specialist at the charity Caritas/Migrantes in Rome. "Business owners are really worried about this campaign because they need this workforce - they are good workers.
"It will be a big problem if Romanians start feeling unwelcome in Italy and go to the U.K. instead."
Maria Mocanu, president of the League of Romanians in Italy, said: "It is not acceptable that, because of a few hundred people, the image of a million Romanians who live in Italy, not to mention the image of an entire country, Romania, is receiving such damage."
Many West European countries are struggling to accommodate two growing sources of immigration.
The first flow is from new member states like Romania and Poland, whose citizens are legally allowed free entrance into other EU countries - although they sometimes must apply for permission to work there.
The second is from Africa and South America. Such citizens must get visas, although many if not most arrive illegally. Under Italy's strict Bossi-Fini immigration laws they must essentially show that they have a job and a place to live in order to be considered for a residency permit. Family sponsorship is not allowed.
There are now an estimated 670,000 illegal immigrants in Italy.
The shantytown sweeps were just one of several measures directed against immigrants by the new government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi this week, its first full week in power.
At Rome's Fiumicino airport, customs checks on incoming passengers have been intensified.
Also Thursday, the Italian police announced that they were in the process of breaking up immigrant-operated criminal rings of Albanians, Chinese and Moroccans dealing in commodities from trash to drugs to arms.
David, the Romanian interior minister, was in Rome this week to work with his Italian counterparts on immigration issues, particularly as they concern the Roma population.
In the meantime, politicians in the new government have floated various proposals, including re-instituting passport checks at Italy's border.
Italy has signed the Schengen agreement that allows travelers to move freely across borders throughout the European Union, although most new EU members, including Romania and Poland, are not yet included in the arrangement.
But even if Italian passport agents were to screen Romanian citizens at the border, they would have no legal basis for turning them back.
At a news conference with David on Thursday afternoon, the Italian interior minister, Roberto Maroni, tried to play down the issue.
"There is no Romanian problem in Italy," he said. "There is a problem of security, which citizens want to be addressed quickly and effectively."
Daniele Pinto contributed reporting.
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Friday, May 16th, 2008
Italy cracks down on immigrants
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