Meloni’s Plan for Asylum Seekers Makes Sense

Don’t let migrants cross the Mediterranean in boats. Process asylum applications abroad.

Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni makes a speech in Cagliari, September 2 (Fratelli d’Italia)

Giorgia Meloni’s call for a “naval blockade” of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea has got plenty of attention, but the likely future prime minister of Italy has another, more humane idea: create European asylum application centers in North Africa, so migrants — many don’t qualify for asylum — don’t attempt a futile and perilous sea journey.

Italy receives an unusually high (for Europe) share of asylum seekers from safe African countries: Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia. Unless they fear persecution in their home country for their political beliefs, religion or sexuality, those asylum seekers are usually sent back.

That doesn’t mean they leave. Immigration authorities don’t have the manpower to escort every rejected asylum seeker back home. Some countries refuse to take their people back. A share — we don’t know how many — remain in Italy illegally. Others try for asylum in another European country.

Since illegal aliens cannot legally work, many end up either exploited or as criminals, and often homeless.

Current system is far from ideal

Even for asylum seekers who are allowed to stay, the current system is far from ideal. Afghan and Syrian refugees typically pay smugglers thousands of dollars to get them into Europe. They travel by truck, by boat and on foot, for weeks or months, with poor hygiene and without access to medical services.

Recipient countries have a poor handle on the influx, which undermines public support for immigration altogether.

When arrivals surged in the Netherlands as a result of the lifting of COVID-19 travel restrictions, the fall of the Western-supported government in Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dutch refugee centers quickly reached capacity and asylum seekers had to sleep outside in tents.

Some Dutch people took refugees in. Others called on the government to “close the border”. Support for the ruling liberal parties went down, support for the (far) right has gone up.

David Frum, a former speechwriter for American president George W. Bush, described the dynamic succinctly: “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.”

Closer borders is not realistic

Meloni is not a fascist, but her popularity at the expense of other right-wing parties certainly has to do with successive governments’ inability to control asylum immigration and to stop illegal immigration.