Italy’s Government Wants Migrants as Workers Without Rights
Giorgia Meloni’s government paints immigration as a threat to Italy’s ethnic homogeneity — but also needs migrants as workers. Its restrictive immigration policy is creating a second-class migrant workforce, denied the rights of citizenship.
Giorgia Meloni speaking to the press in Rome on November 5, 2024. (Tiziana FABI / AFP via Getty Images)
Twelve months ago, Giorgia Meloni’s government signed a protocol with Albania to establish two Italian “asylum centers” on the southeast European country’s territory. One, located at the port of Shëngjin, serves as the initial screening point for migrants rescued by Italian ships on the high seas. The second, in Gjadër, has a twenty-eight-day time frame to process asylum applications from migrants originating from so-called safe countries. It detains those whose asylum claims are denied, pending their repatriation.
This experiment in offshoring asylum processes to a non-EU third country has stirred the interest of leaders across Europe. German chancellor Olaf Scholz, British prime minister Keir Starmer, and European commissioner Ursula von der Leyen are among those watching closely, curious to see how this Italian initiative will unfold. Yet Prime Minister Meloni’s ambition to transform the two centers in Albania into a hub for processing thousands of irregular migrants is now clouded in uncertainty. An Italian court has intervened, ruling against the detention of the first sixteen migrants — Egyptian and Bangladeshi nationals — brought to the newly established centers. This decision complicates Meloni’s plans and hints at a coming conflict between her government and the judiciary, raising questions about whether such policies can withstand the scrutiny of the European legal system.
But what is really at stake in this conflict? To grasp this, we have to look at the Italian far right’s vision of immigration. The Italia-Albania protocol is yet another effort to tighten deterrent measures against irregular maritime arrivals. But in this context the word “maritime” has greater significance in than “irregular.” The battle is not against irregular migration as a whole; it is about stopping the arrival of migrants navigating Mediterranean sea routes. Meloni insists on the strict control of Italy’s “maritime” borders and a campaign against sea traffickers. But in the background are strategies that could enhance internal controls to identify other forms of irregular migration, like visa overstays, and address the brutalization of irregular migrants in certain segments of the Italian labor market.
The core issue lies in the vision that these policies represent — Italy’s future as conceived by Meloni and her cohort. In this sense, it is important to note that Italy is in desperate need of immigration. With 24.9 percent of its population over age sixty-five, Italy ranks as the second-oldest country in the world, surpassed only by Japan. This demographic structure, in which a disproportionately small portion of the working population must support a growing elderly population and pay for their care and pensions, is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Meloni, having to face a labor shortage such as her predecessors never dealt with, is certainly aware of these distressing figures. Her “decreto flussi” (flow decree) proposes to accept 452,000 non-EU foreign nationals between 2023 and 2025. The country has also welcomed the arrival of Ukrainian refugees and maintains a most liberal policy regarding citizenship for foreigners — primarily Brazilian, Argentine, and Venezuelan citizens — who can prove that one of their ancestors never lost their Italian citizenship. But what, then, distinguishes this desired immigration from irregular maritime arrivals — a category so intimidating that it is driving new deterrent measures and the shrinking of asylum rights?
Flow Decree
The answer lies in the countries of origin of people migrating by sea. Most of those taking to the seas come from nations not included on the “common list” — the European list of third countries whose nationals do not require visas for crossing external borders. They are primarily from sub-Saharan Africa, the MENA (Middle East–North Africa) region, and South Asia. According to UN refugee agency data, the most frequently represented nationalities among sea migrants in 2023 included Guineans, Tunisians, Ivorians, Bangladeshis, and Egyptians. For these individuals, the opportunity to enter Europe through regular pathways is severely limited by strict visa requirements, compelling many to opt for perilous and often fatal irregular routes.
The Italian flow decree, which permits entries from African and Asian countries outside the “common list,” fundamentally aims to address immediate labor demand. One might be tempted to conclude that Meloni’s government is merely implementing policies to curb irregular migration while simultaneously creating pathways for regular immigration. However, this interpretation misses a central point of this immigration model.
The decree is narrowly tailored to target specific labor shortages in sectors where the need is particularly pressing. While the flow decree outlines regular immigration procedures, its primary focus is filling labor market gaps in transportation, construction, hospitality, fishing, domestic assistance, and agriculture. The flow decree, when considered alongside the regulations for acquiring citizenship for non-European foreigners — a law that has remained unchanged for thirty-two years — clearly indicates to migrants that they should take advantage of available employment while they can, without raising excessive expectations of becoming fully recognized members of the national community.
In particular, the law on acquiring nationality mandates ten years of uninterrupted, legally permitted residence, with each year itself requiring a residency permit linked to a formal job. This is surely an uncommon situation among workers who often find themselves in precarious positions, lacking essential labor protections. Even if the time and permit requirements are fulfilled, authorities retain the discretion to assess applicants’ financial independence. The underlying message of this legislative framework is unmistakable: ethnically non-white immigrants are accepted only insofar as they meet the immediate demands of the Italian economy and are willing to take on subordinate roles. Unless they manage to secure stable employment contracts in the specific sectors where they are needed, they are expected sooner or later, to leave the country.
For the Italian far right and a significant portion of Italians — Meloni’s support has shown no signs of waning since she took office in October 2022 — African and Asian migrants are viewed as too culturally and ethnically distinct to be integrated seamlessly into the national community without jeopardizing its internal cohesion.
No Turning Back the Clock
Over the last three decades, international migration has transformed Italy into an ethnically diverse society — one that many Italians were not accustomed to. This ethnic diversification is, given the country’s position within Europe — Italy being the second-largest manufacturer in the EU — and its aging population, a matter of inevitability. In 1910, Italians comprised over 2 percent of the global population; today, that figure has dropped to just 0.7 percent.
Given the reproductive trends of the local population, Italy and its welfare state require a steady influx of immigration to maintain their current form and to prevent the country from being downsized. According to the Italian far right, to counter this existential threat, the nation must rely only on immigration that is largely compatible with its ethnic and religious homogeneity. Otherwise, Italy risks facing another mortal danger: losing its relative ethnic and religious cohesion. Thus, while Ukrainians and Argentinians are welcomed to strengthen the fabric of Italian society, the same cannot be said for Nigerians and Senegalese.
There is no way to turn back the clock. International migration movements have transformed Italy’s ethnic landscape; being Italian no longer signifies being white and Christian. To preserve the majority’s dominance over minorities, it is pivotal to keep those who do not conform to this ethnic-religious standard in precarious positions. Restricting opportunities for Africans and Asians to manual labor, coupled with tightening controls on Mediterranean migration routes, are calculated moves in this direction. In a nation that has served as a crossroads for international migration for decades, recreating a homogeneous national identity can only be accomplished through aggressive deterrence policies — much like the attempts to externalize migration to Albania — thereby fostering a hostile environment for certain ethnic groups deemed unassimilable.
Where the presence of ethnic and religious minorities is unavoidable, the far right believes that safeguarding national unity requires segregating these groups into social ghettos, isolated far from democratic spaces where they might advocate for their rights and raise their voices. Yet, in a country of approximately fifty-nine million people, with over five million foreigners and 1.62 million Italian citizens of non-European origin, the attempt to transform migrants into a permanent underclass risks inciting social conflict rather than preventing it.
The fact that leaders such as Scholz, Starmer, and Von der Leyen are observing Italy’s experiments with a keen eye reflects an unmistakable shift in European politics toward the far right. The Italian model is not merely about tightening borders; it aspires to maintain a homogeneous community, resisting ethnic diversity while upholding the mechanisms of democratic representation for the majority. This represents a retreat to an ethnically and culturally uniform nation-state — an ambition that may appear anachronistic, yet for many in our contemporary world, feels surprisingly compelling. The pursuit of such an objective, however, will inevitably incur a considerable human cost. It means a contraction of democratic principles, reduced to the dominance of the majority over minorities and their rights.