Only 10% of expelled migrants are repatriated: the others remain “prisoners” in Italian CPRs

The centers violate human rights and are a disaster for public finances. The data from the report “Retained 2024. An X-ray of the detention system for foreigners” by ActionAid and the University of Bari

ROME – Fifty thousand foreigners detained from 2014 to 2023 in centers that violate human rights and are a disaster for public finances in a scenario of progressive and deliberate confusion between the reception and detention systems, administrative chaos and astronomical costs. Thus the CPRs in Italy – explains a press release – appear as a model of inhumanity, uncontrolled and failed management from which the new detention centers in Albania branded by the Meloni Government take shape.

Sicily is the new hub for the “light detention” – as defined by Minister Piantedosi – of asylum seekers subjected to border procedures. And it is precisely from the Sicilian CPRs that 54% of national repatriations depart, 85% of which are of Tunisian citizens only: the system in fact holds people at the border, particularly in Sicily, and is based only on the bilateral agreement with Tunisia. However, in 2023, Tunisian citizens were less than 11% of total arrivals in Italy and in 2023 only 10% of people who received an expulsion order were repatriated from the CPRs. The report “Retained 2024. An X-ray of the detention system for foreigners” by ActionAid and the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Bari reconstructs the detention system for repatriation between 2014 and 2023, with data collected thanks to 97 requests for access to documents to the Ministry of the Interior, Prefectures and Police Headquarters and 53 requests for review.

UNLIVABILITY OF SPACES AND FAILED POLICY – The centers are inhuman places: inside, acts of self-harm, riots caused by conditions of extreme hardship and deprivation of basic rights of people, have led to continuous damage and destruction, making most of the places unavailable. The system has always operated at reduced capacity and in 2023 at 53% of its official capacity. To date, only 10 out of 12 active facilities are open and functioning. The rate of effectiveness of the detention policy so far has been negligible: in 2023, only 10% of the people affected by an expulsion order were repatriated from the CPRs, that is, out of 28,347 people, “only” 2,987 were repatriated from the Italian CPRs. The total number of repatriations is 4,267 (including all procedures carried out outside the CPRs).

“A policy that achieves 10% of the expected results is unacceptable, unless it is recognized that the objective is not the explicit one of repatriation, but that of assimilating migrants to criminals, eroding the foundations of the right to asylum and the reception system” comments Fabrizio Coresi, migration expert for ActionAid.

A LIST OF NEGATIVE RECORDS – In Turin the cost of the CPR, closed since March 2023, is exorbitant: over 3 million euros for the rental of the structure to Ferrovie dello Stato, extraordinary renovations and balance to the last managing body. The one in Rome at Ponte Galeria costs almost 6 million between 2022 and 2023. In Milan, a management commissioner following investigations by the prosecutor’s office in which fraud in public supplies, bid rigging and hellish conditions for those retained had emerged. In Gorizia, the Prefecture claims not to be in possession of accounting data. The Brindisi CPR, with an effective capacity of 14 places, sees the average cost of a place exceed 71,500 euros per year.

OUT OF CONTROL COSTS FOR CENTERS WITHOUT RULES – Cooperatives and for-profit entities, including a multinational, manage the detention facilities amid administrative confusion and lack of transparency.

“There are CPR managers excluded from the prefectures’ tenders, most of the time due to illicit acts and crimes against the Public Administration, but who participate in new tenders and continue to manage CPRs in other regions,” explains Fabrizio Coresi, migration expert for ActionAid. “The managers are always the same. These entities generate a profit by not providing what is foreseen in the contract and by leveraging the lack of controls by the prefectures. Also for this reason, given the monitoring like ours, there are fewer and fewer subjects willing to manage these places, subjects that often ally themselves with their competitors to win the tenders”.

However, the exorbitant costs are clear in the face of a limited number of places: almost 93 million euros the overall cost from 2018 to 2023. Of these, over 33 million spent on the maintenance of the centers, of which over 76% was used for extraordinary maintenance interventions, i.e. renovations due to damage. Confirming that the extension of the detention times only leads to an increase in extraordinary maintenance costs: in 2018, an average stay of 33 days in a CPR corresponds to almost 1.3 million euros for extraordinary maintenance costs; in 2022, with an average stay of 40 days, costs had jumped to 9.6 million.

The entire system in the last two years considered (2022-2023) cost 39 million and the average annual cost of a detention facility rises to one million and 760 thousand euros, while the average annual cost of a place reaches almost 29 thousand euros. Exorbitant costs but underestimated, since they do not include ‘ancillary costs’. In Macomer, for example, it costs more to guarantee just food and lodging for the police forces guarding the CPR than to manage it: 5 million and 800 thousand euros between 2020 and 2023 which, added to what is spent for the structure alone, bring the average cost of a place to over 52 thousand euros in 2023. Even in Palazzo San Gervasio, food and lodging for the police forces costs an average of 680 thousand euros per year. Added to the management and maintenance costs, in 2023, they bring the average cost of a place to more than 45 thousand euros.

TWO NEW BORDER CENTERS IN SICILY – With the Cutro Decree, a new system was created for the rapid management of asylum applications and repatriations with procedures directly at the border (or even off-shore, as demonstrated by the agreement with Albania). The first of these new detention centers for asylum seekers (Ctra) was inaugurated in 2023 in Modica (Ragusa) and, for the setup alone, it cost more than 1 million and 650 thousand euros. A second one was opened in Porto Empedocle (Agrigento) in 2024. Two more by the end of the year in Augusta (Catania) and Trapani: 16 million euros from the 2024 budget of the Ministry of Defense. The rules and centers for the detention of asylum seekers are the real innovation introduced in the system, but between 2018 and 2023 their presence in the CPRs had already grown from 15.4% to 33.9%. In 2023, 49% of the over 6,700 people who entered the CPRs were held in the centers of Caltanissetta (17%), Rome (17%), Trapani (15%). Finally, people entering the CPRs directly from prison are only 14.3% in 2022 and 16.4% in 2023. These are people who in most cases cannot be repatriated.

“Investment in CPRs has led to an increase in the human and economic costs of repatriation policies. Since 2017, fewer people have been repatriated, at higher costs and in an increasingly coercive manner – continues Giuseppe Campesi, of the University of Bari, one of the leading experts in Italy on administrative detention and repatriations – The use of these structures has already proven to be a failure, however, detention centers continue to be presented as a solution to increase the number of repatriations. The data collected, however, say the exact opposite”.