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After months of negotiations between the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement, on Monday night the Council of Ministers approved an amendment to the so-called “security decrees”, the two extremely restrictive laws on immigration and integration and against various forms of order. public. Much desired by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, approved between 2018 and 2019. The change had been promised on several occasions by the Democratic Party and requested, among others, by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who had denounced several problems to the parliament. with the decrees and called for a new legislative intervention.
The changes refer to articles 131-bis and 588 of the penal code and, first of all, they intervene in the harsh rules that were imposed on NGO ships that carry out migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Under security decrees, the government had the power to prevent ships accused of violating Italian immigration laws from entering Italian territorial waters, with fines that could reach up to 1 million euros and confiscation of the ship. The government provision does not eliminate fines for NGOs, but establishes that the prohibition of entry into territorial waters will apply only if the ships involved in the rescue have not communicated their operations to the Italian authorities and those of the country of origin; the maximum fines cannot exceed 50 thousand euros and the administrative sanctions that had been introduced, including the confiscation of the ship, have been eliminated. For those who violate the entry ban, the risk of imprisonment for up to 2 years is maintained “in case of reasons of public order and security or of violation of the rules on smuggling of migrants by sea.”
As for assistance to migrants arriving in Italy, the changes desired by the government effectively reintroduce the “humanitarian protection” that had been canceled by the Salvini decrees, putting thousands of migrants with regular residence permits on the road. The first security decree, in fact, canceled residence permits for humanitarian reasons, one of three forms of protection that could be granted to asylum seekers (along with royal political asylum and subsidiary protection).
The new decree also establishes that residence permits for special protection – that is, the old protection for humanitarian reasons – and permits for disasters, for elective residence, for acquisition of citizenship or statelessness are convertible into residence permits for work reasons. , for sports activities, for artistic works, for religious reasons and for assisting minors. The conversion has been a request for years from associations dealing with the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.
Asylum seekers will also be able to return to access the generalized reception system – formerly SPRAR, now SIPROIMI, considered much more efficient than the larger centers to manage the integration of new arrivals – which instead the decrees promoted by Salvini had reserved for the people who have already a form of protection, making them in fact useless (in Italy protection is guaranteed at the end of a legal process that lasts several years).
The prohibition of refoulement and expulsion is also reintroduced in states where the foreigner runs the risk of being subjected to “inhuman or degrading treatment and his expulsion is prohibited even in cases of risk of violation of the right to respect for his private life and family”. . Asylum seekers will be able to re-register in the municipal registry – a possibility that had been suspended with the “security decrees” – and obtain an identity card valid for three years. The text also establishes that the maximum period in the repatriation centers goes from 180 to 90 days, and reduces the maximum period of procedures for the recognition of citizenship from 48 to 36 months.
The provision also introduces a tightening of the so-called “Urban Daspo”, allowing to prohibit access to public premises also against “subjects who have reported one or more complaints or a non-final conviction, during the last three years, in relation to the sale or transfer of narcotic or psychotropic substances’.
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