Amid flood of refugees to Europe Italy opens a back door - The Washington Post
It is called Mare Nostrum.
Our Sea.
It started last year after a series of shipwrecks off Sicily’s coast killed more than 500 migrants. In what Italian authorities call a key turning point,
Pope Francis flew to the site of one tragedy, providing Italians with what some here describe as a new moral compass.
“Who has wept for the deaths of these brothers and sisters?” Frances said last year on the Italian island of Lampedusa, after a sinking migrant vessel off the coast had gone unaided. “Who has wept for the people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who wanted something to support their families with?”
Now, at a cost of more than $12 million a month, the Italian navy is conducting massive interdiction and rescue operations in Europe’s single-busiest corridor for migrant traffic — the central Mediterranean. Rescued migrants are brought to port in Italy, offered medical treatment, food, water and temporary shelter. Instead of immediate deportation, the vast majority are granted legal aid to make formal requests for asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection. This year, Italian laws were changed to decriminalize migrants, who once faced the prospect of jail time and fines before deportation.
Once in Italy, however, most do not stay here. Rather, the Italians have adopted a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy on their plans once they arrive. From shelters, where migrants enjoy relative freedom of movement, most leave within the first few nights, continuing their journeys north to countries such as Germany and Sweden that offer lucrative aid to asylum-seekers lucky enough to make it that far.
The program has its detractors, with other European nations and domestic critics saying that Italy, by aiding migrants at sea, is partly to blame for encouraging more and more dangerous crossings. So lax is the Italian entry procedure, critics contend, that criminals, even terrorists, could be slipping through Italian nets.
As arrivals approach 1,000 migrants per day, Italy is now overwhelmed, and Mare Nostrum faces an uncertain future. The island of Sicily — the first port of call for the majority of migrants — has declared a state of emergency. Cash-strapped Italian authorities have suggested that they may end the program by autumn. Last month, the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, pledged to ramp up regional support for the Italian effort. But the scope of their aid remains in doubt.
