The new immigration measures made the front page of several Italian newspapers this Saturday.
Italy will seek to deport more migrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before carrying out the deportations, according to a written order from police and a ministerial source.
Police chief Franco Gabrielli sent a two-page statement to several police stations across the country on Friday ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport immigrants, a week after the man behind the attack with a truck in Berlin before Christmas, Anis Amri, was killed near Milan.
The order, which was seen by Reuters, determines that the police take “extraordinary actions” given the “increasing migratory pressure in an international context marked by instability and threats” to “control and remove irregular foreigners”.
Interior Minister Marco Minnitti plans to open several new detention centers to hold immigrants before deportation, according to a ministry source, in a sign that Italy is aligned with European Union partners on this issue. .
The new measures on immigration, featured on the cover of several Italian newspapers this Saturday, are the first change implemented by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni since he took office in mid-December, and come on the heels of a year that saw record arrivals of immigrants to the country by sea.
The measures are also announced less than a month after the truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, including an Italian woman. Anis Amri, the attacker, is Tunisian and traveled to Italy by boat in 2011. Italy unsuccessfully tried to deport him back to Tunisia, but he was then released from a detention center and had to leave the country in 2015.
By Steve Scherer/Reuters
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