My great-grandfather left Italy in 1921 to sail to the United States. Upon arriving, he disembarked not upon the shores of Ocean City, New Jersey, nor did he climb up onto Manhattan. Upon his arrival, he instead spent time in Ellis Island. He was checked for any illnesses, processed, and then released into the country, once it was deemed that he had arrived legally. Even until today, Ellis Island is portrayed as a beacon of hope for millions who came from elsewhere, seeking a new home. But bizarrely, however, modern progressives seem as if they would deem Ellis Island, if it were to exist today, a massive human rights violation.
This is not entirely hypothetical. Italy’s government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni signed a deal in 2023 with Albania to begin to solve the massive migration issue which has befuddled countless European governments for nearly a decade. With the arrangement, Italy will hand over up to 36,000 males per year to Albania, where they will in turn be processed in asylum centres (paid for by Italy). The migrants, who would have been caught in the Mediterranean, will be checked to ensure that they have a legal standing to claim asylum, that they are not criminals, and that they are not arriving illegally. Once processed, if they are found to have legitimate reasons, they would be allowed to continue into Italy.
This would seem to be eminently reasonable – but progressives do not think so. One lawyer, working for a left-wing NGO, said that the concept was “an Italian Guantanamo.” Which is a bizarre comparison, as the migrants are certainly not going to be waterboarded by Albanians. Guantanamo Bay did at one point play host to Haitian migrants in the early 1990s, many of whom were fleeing a dictator; but there was nothing inherently sinister about the practice. GITMO only became a byword in the post-war on terror era.
It would seem, therefore, that progressives are simply angry that migrants are not being allowed to come at will into Europe. This is not hyperbole: when former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini tried to stop a cruise ship from docking in Italian waters, he was prosecuted (and is currently awaiting a verdict which could land him in prison for six years).
But specifically, why are progressives demanding free entry of anyone into Europe? Well, the International Rescue Committee – a left-wing NGO – has called the agreement “costly, cruel, and inhumane.”
The deal is indeed expensive, as even Italy’s government admits. Their interior minister recently said it would cost about €160 million a year for five years – a heft sum. This sounded like a lot, but the minister contextualised it: Italy already spends about €1.7 billion a year on migration issues, which means that the offshore processing is only about one-tenth of what they already pay.
And one also has to consider the knock-on effects: already, over the last year, new seaborne arrivals to Italy have dropped precipitously. That is because Meloni’s government has simply made it a hassle to migrate there. They have continued to block NGO ships, have worked with North African governments to get them to block migrants from leaving, and now are opening the Albania processing centres. Why go to Italy and risk ending up in an Albanian processing centre – if you even get there in the first place – when you could go to Spain instead?
The second two descriptors, “cruel and inhumane,” are essentially synonyms. Effectively, they accuse the agreement of being mean. But let us start from the ground floor here. It is not “mean” not to allow a homeless person into your house. The people who run the NGOs (and the wealthy donors who fund them) certainly do not open their homes to any migrant who comes knocking. The concept of meanness here is entirely overstretched.
It is also a severe overstretch to call it cruel. Many migrants who arrive to Europe end up sleeping on streets because of a lack of accommodation. When they are provided accommodation, it often can wreck local economies. At one point, nearly 32 per cent of Irish hotel beds outside of Dublin were being used by migrants (who were there on the public’s dime). Why is it therefore cruel to have them in processing centres – the kind which were standard fare for most migrants who entered the United States by ship for decades?
There is also the issue of there really being no other solution. Meloni’s courting of North African governments definitely also has helped, but it will not entirely stop the flow. Some governments, like Hungary and The Netherlands, are seeking opt-outs on the European Union’s migration policies. Others are even jumping to more extreme measures. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is planning on temporarily suspending the right to asylum entirely. While the rest of Europe may not go as far as Tusk – who may be acting out of electoral necessity, as he wants his party to win Poland’s presidential election next year – other governments have shown interest in Italy’s strategy. Recently, newly-elected centre-left Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom flew to Rome to quiz Meloni on how it works – and even donated nearly €5 million to her initiative.
Ellis Island was no Guantanamo Bay. These new detention centres won’t be either.
Big apes, but not small humans, come under protection of Spanish law