Migrant centers in Albania are a useless (and harmful) waste of money
Following the estimates of Orazio Schillaci, Minister of Health of the Meloni government, to hire 5 thousand doctors and 10 thousand nurses, who could contribute to greatly reducing those waiting lists which make it a real Odyssey to access care for those who cannot afford private clinics would need around 800 million euros. It is the same amount that the executive has allocated to open and make operational the detention centers for migrants in Shengjin and Gjader, in Albania.
In Albania we will do exactly what is already done in Italy
Two structures resulting from the controversial agreement between Rome and Tirana: a move by the prime minister to be able to tell her voters and those of her ally Matteo Salvini (fostered for years against desperate people arriving by sea from extremely poor countries, at war, or in which human rights are not guaranteed), which is doing something concrete to combat illegal immigration. In reality, as has been explained by many, those centers are nothing more than a useless and ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ money, because they do not change the situation one iota.
“The 16 migrants brought to Albania are laboratory guinea pigs, Giorgia Meloni throws away the Italians’ money”
The difference, compared to what happened until yesterday, is that zero point of all the migrants who land or try to land on our coasts (we are talking about about a thousand people in five years) will be transported to the new facilities, where Italian staff will do exactly what it already does in those existing on Italian territory: it will verify the asylum requests and decide whether to grant them or expel the migrant.
18 thousand euros per migrant for the first trip
So, what is the point of the expensive journey and expensive stay of a few migrants in Albania? In reality it serves absolutely no purpose: the Prime Minister herself, speaking in the Chamber, said that the aim is to create a sort of deterrence, that is, to discourage those who leave. What Giorgia Meloni probably cannot admit is that those detention centers outside the national territory serve above all to speak to a part of Italians. They serve to give the idea of a violent mass deportation (which will not happen) to the least literate and most racist part of the right-wing electorate, made up of people who have been taught to hate immigrants and who often find themselves in those hospital waiting lists without even realizing that they are the second victims of vulgar propaganda. A very expensive propaganda which could soon be undermined by appeals, given that the Court of Justice of the European Union has already said that many of the countries that Italy considers “safe” are in reality not safe and therefore those arriving from those countries have the right to protection.
The clear image of this waste of Italian money is the first trip to the Albanian facilities, with 16 unfortunates taken from small boats in the middle of the Mediterranean and transported on the Libra ship of the Navy. A crossing that the seafarers estimated at between 250 and 290 thousand euros, or 18 thousand euros per migrant. Money that is added to the 800 million already allocated and which could increase further to guarantee the return to Italy of those migrants who obtain international protection. Evidently, for the current government, all this is more important than trying to thin out those waiting lists.