Italy: Union angry over speedy ejection of refugees from reception center

Rome: A trade union has spoken out against the speedy removal of migrants from a reception center in Italy’s Pescara province. Those evicted had just been granted a five-year stay permit, but the union felt the eviction was too fast, and could potentially hinder the refugee’s future progress towards integration.

“Asylum seekers who, after months [of waiting], received the recognition of their status and as a result the much-desired five-year stay permit, were immediately removed from the facilities in which they were hosted,” said Italy’s Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) trade union on July 30.

The union underlined that, in this act, the “refugees in special reception centers in Pescara province suffered a serious act of injustice, with potentially serious repercussions.”

The statement was made during a press conference with Pescara’s Prefect. Similar fast evictions from reception centers in Bari have also been the focus of previous union protests.

The trade union said that, on the morning of the prevous day, without any prior warning, the security forces, on the indication of the Pescara prefect (and the Interior ministry) removed all the refugees who had been granted international protection from the special reception center.”

“It is hard to understand why, on the same day they received the news that their request had been granted, they were issued with the obligation to immediately leave the reception center. Perhaps they were mistaken for packages?” USB asked.

“It was a choice made by the prefect, probably dictated by the Interior ministry, to make people leave the facilities even prior to getting their official stay permits,” the union added.

“They were not given even a few days or a week to get organized, to find another place to stay. In this way, migrants are being forced onto the streets, despite — or perhaps precisely because — they finally got a stay permit.”

The USB statement lashed out at the decision, noting that the migrants have nowhere to go.

“Where will they go?,” the union said. “How will they organize themselves? Wouldn’t it have been better to wait at least the time necessary for them to actually get their stay permits? In this case it would have been an appropriate amount of time for every one of them to find housing and work. The unjustified and brutal choice of throwing people out onto the street in this way creates a social powder keg and renders months and years of activities in vain, [potentially setting back] the social progression of the hosted refugees who studied, worked, and who have the possibility to create a future.”

The choice to order the migrants out as soon as they were notified that their requests for a stay permit had been granted “pushes people towards blackmail, exploitation, and illegality,” stated the union.

USB thus asked to “immediately block the exit from centers prior to the official delivery of stay permits for refugees.”