The Persistent Issue of Refugees. Organised Hypocrisy, Solidarity and Mounting Protest

Although Italy is now a country of mature immigration, with second generation migrants and naturalization rates in continuous growth, in recent years the migration issue gained importance almost exclusively as a "refugee crisis", with dramatic images of rescues at sea and a number of deaths in the Mediterranean sea. The beginning of the crisis, however, dates back to the first months of 2011, when the fall of regimes in Tunisia and Libya undermined what were until then strategic partners in alleviating the pressure of migration from sub-Saharan Africa. The absence of an adequate response from the EU, and consequently from Italy, only made the situation worse. The CEAS (Common European Asylum System), devised immediately after the ratification of the Schengen Agreement (1992) with the perspective of a control of external borders and protection of the free movement area, forced Italy, as well as other South European countries, to bear significant costs in terms of first reception and management of asylum seekers. A gap has emerged between the official objectives of closure towards unwanted economic migration, and the reality of mixed flows where economic and political reasons often overlap and merge with each other. The Italian refugee crisis therefore seems to be the product of an ''organized hypocrisy" [Brunsson 2002] underlying the Common European Asylum System, aimed more at containing rather than facilitating access to international protection [Sciortino 2016]. Italian reception policies have been firmly structured on the distinction between refugees and economic migrants, whereby the former, presumably a few "lucky" ones, are guaranteed access to the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (SPRAR), while the latter are left to extremely discretionary and differentiated emergency measures on the national territory. The analysis is developed in four sections. The first section reconstructs the major events and critical moments of the migrant crisis of 2016 in Italy, while the second one analyses the Italian policies of (non) crisis management in the framework of the CEAS. The third section analyses the implementation of the reception policies, with a particular focus on dysfunctional - if not outright perverse - aspects of the system, which seems to amplify the magnitude of the crisis and lead to episodes of rejection of both migrants and those committed to help them. Finally, the fourth section focuses on the public opinion and media.