Italy’s Meloni Scores a Victory on Illegal Immigration as the Rest of Europe Is Reeling

Can someone please put this woman in charge of the southern border, and pronto? Based on her recent success in staunching the flow of illegal migrants, the prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, might work wonders where Vice President Harris has, for the most part, failed. According to new figures from the Italian interior ministry, illegal arrivals in 2024 to date have fallen by 65 percent compared to last year, with 40,138 migrants disembarking on Italian shores as of August 27 compared to 113,469 over the same period in 2023. The ministry also reported that arrivals of unaccompanied minors over the past eight months dropped to 5,044 compared to 18,820 over the same period last year. These are welcome figures for a politician who successfully campaigned on a platform of being tough on illegal migration. They come at a time when Germany is grappling with the sisyphean task of integrating nearly a million Syrian refugees amid rising migrant-related crime, as Great Britain recovers from a summer of riots fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment and as southern Europe braces for another tidal wave of refugees. The decline is due in no small part to diplomatic agreements between Rome and the governments of Tunisia and Libya. The interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, told La Stampa that those agreements have already made it possible to “block half of arrivals.” Ms. Meloni has also signed a deal with Albania so that country will be able to process thousands of asylum requests. Significantly, as illegal arrivals have fallen, the number of repatriations has risen, with more than 9,000 migrants returned to their countries of origin, mainly to Libya and Tunisia, in 2024 so far. Measures to toughen immigration conditions across the board, such as toughening penalties for people smugglers and restricting the right to work for certain categories of migrants, have also played a deterrent role.Despite these efforts, other migratory routes in the Mediterranean remain active. While landings in Italy are decreasing, illegal arrivals in Spain and Greece have increased dramatically over last year — according to various European reports, by 155 percent and 222 percent respectively.Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has apparently gotten the memo from Ms. Meloni that cracking down on refugee arrivals demands substantive action. This week Mr. Sanchez embarks on a state visit to three West African countries, including Gambia and Mauritania, in a bid to cement deals to stop illegal migrants from coming to Spain’s Canary Islands.More than 22,000 people have disembarked on Spanish shores since January, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry recently reported — that is more than double the number of illegal arrivals for the same period last year. It poses challenges for Spain and dangers for the people trying to get there. In July, a boat packed with 300 migrants — mostly from Gambia and Senegal — capsized off Mauritania. The situation in Greece is more complicated, in part due to the country’s proximity to the Turkish coast, from which small boats set off, loaded with refugees from Middle East hot spots. In recent months the tactics adopted by people smugglers have grown more inventive. Last week a Hellenic Coast Guard patrol boat sighted an inflatable speed boat with 25 refugees on board near the coast of the Greek island of Chios. The Turkish operator of the boat gave chase, and only with the dispatch of a second Greek patrol boat was the Turkish vessel stopped. That incident was preceded by one this month involving a Turkish speed boat packed with migrants near the popular holiday island of Symi — which ended in violence. According to a statement from the Greek coast guard, shots were fired, first into the air and then at the vessel’s engine in order “to avert the direct threat to the patrol boat and its crew” after the [Turkish] helmsman rammed the Greek patrol boat in a bid to escape arrest.These events appear to be multiplying. On Tuesday, the Hellenic Coast Guard made public one such incident over the weekend involving a Palestinian Arab and an Afghan man piloting a speed boat that tried to ram a patrol boat that was pursuing them off the coast of the island of Kos, near Rhodes. According to the Greek coast guard, the illicit helmsmen made five passengers jump into the sea as the coast guard vessel stopped to try to rescue them.Athens and Ankara have had on again, off again talks about improving communication channels between their coast guards to tackle illegal immigration in the Aegean Sea. Reaching lasting agreements on the matter with President Erdogan, however, is not always easy. Last year Prime Minister Mitsotakis stated diplomatically that “cooperation can be [improved] and has to improve even more.”

Italy’s Meloni Scores a Victory on Illegal Immigration as the Rest of Europe Is Reeling

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