[War] Italy: Problems with Obvious Solutions

[Dan Garcia]

"Italy:  Problems with Obvious Solutions"
Prime Minister Lazaro Magnano
Italian Republic
23 January 2013

Lazaro stood at the podium, flanked by his Ministers of Justice and the Interior, Roberto Castelli and Angelo Alessandri respectively, both Northern League politicians.  Today, Lazaro's new government would begin its the process of attempting to enact its political agenda.  And there could be no better place to start than the item at the top of that agenda.


"The problem of illegal immigration," Lazaro began, "is one which undermines the fabric of our society.  No society can long be content or prosperous when the law is being ignored or flouted.  Those who come here without our permission are ignoring and flouting our law.  They are ignoring and flouting the will of the rightful citizens of our country.  And for all this, their punishment is minimal if they are punished at all.

"For our part, this is a problem we have let grow.  We have responded weakly.  We have implemented half-measures.  We have lacked the will to do what we as a nation felt that we should do, and so we have let the problem grow.

"There are some, many, who remain unwilling to take stern, effective measures to fight this problem.  They have, do, and will continue to argue that we should not respond to harshly out of compassion.  They will make arguments about human rights which supersede the law.  They will give a litany of reasons why our policies with regard to illegal immigration should be moderate and accommodating, why we should continue down the path we travel.

"I can not condone such arguments.  The luxury of indulging those who come here illegal was lost to us when they went from thousands to hundreds of thousands.  What was ignorable when the flow was but a trickle is no longer acceptable with a flood.

"Our laws exist for a reason, and though one may debate the merits of a given law, the law is the law, and it must be enforced.  It is the lack of enforcement of the law, the constant flouting of the law, the willingness to ignore the law in order to meet one's own ends which make the countries from which so many of our illegal immigrants have come such terrible places to live.  They come here to better their lives, but in the process do nothing but transport the very disease which has made their homelands' so unpalatable to our own doorstep.  The law must be obeyed if any society is to live in peace and prosperity.

"To this end, my government plans to introduce a series of measures aimed at ending, or at least vastly reducing, the problem of illegal immigration.

"First, the simplest way to deal with illegal immigrants is to never allow them in the country.  To that end, the government will propose an increase in patrols over the central Mediterranean, involving more patrol ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, and a better information infrastructure to locate and deal with people who are trying to reach Italy illegally.

"To go hand in hand with and increased frequency of patrols, the government will propose to no longer allow ships carrying illegals to make landfall in Italy.  Attempts to force Italian authorities to bring illegals to Italy, for instance by purposefully sinking their own ship, will no longer be allowed to facilitate their entrance into Italy, even if this means Italian patrol ships ferrying illegals back to their point of departure.  And even if, despite all the measures the Italian authorities enact to prevent illegals from making landfall, they will no longer be left or let free on Italian territory.

"Second, for those who do reach Italy or who are already here, the government will propose the summary deportation of those who can not prove the legality of their residence in Italy, or those caught in the act of successfully entering Italy illegally.  The administrative and judicial burden of dealing with illegal immigrants will be reduced to the bare minimum.  Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to hide behind endless administrative and judicial proceedings.

"Thirdly, to support the prior measures, the Italian government will propose to grant the police and Carabinieri the authority to actively seek out, arrest, and remove from the general population illegal immigrants.  All illegal immigrants in the possession of Italian authorities will not be placed in our prisons, but in special illegal immigration holding and processing facilities.  There their cases can be handled by specialized personnel and thus processed in a more expedited manner.

"Finally, and more generally, the Italian government will pursue measures which will make clear that illegal immigration is not welcome.  That those who attempt to come here illegally will not achieve their aims, and will not profit by the attempt."

"I now turn things over to Minister Alessandri who will discuss some of the Ministry of the Interior's proposals."


ACTIONS:

1)  Announce the beginning of a government push to implement drastically more stringent and severe measures to deal with illegal immigration.  The main tenets of the initial proposals are as below.

A)  Increased patrols by maritime and airborne assets to locate, stop, and do everything possible to turn back illegal immigrants on their way to Italy.

B)  Announce a policy aimed towards the deportation of illegal immigrants as soon as possible.  To that end, fast-tracked and streamlined procedures will be employed to deal with each case.

C)  It is proposed illegal immigrants on Italian territory be sent to special immigration processing centers and not be allowed to move freely on Italian territory.

Note that these proposals are in their initial stages, and at the moment the government is looking to gauge feedback before making the push to have these measures enacted into law.  Moreover, some of these measures (e.g. increasing the resources for patrol or actually setting up the immigration centers) will be dealt with separately, once the government has gauged feedback.

2)  In a more general sense, the Italian government aims to appear less appealing in the eyes of potential illegal immigrants.  Hopefully these skeleton proposals will start this process.