Giuliano Fleri is a migration and refugee historian at Columbia University in New York City.
Cyclone Harry devastated infrastructure and caused billions of euros of damage across Southern Italy. Drawing scant media coverage and an inert official response, the disaster showed the depth of Italy’s divide, with events in the South all but ignored.
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.