In our article for the University of Oxford, Faculty of Law – Border Criminologies Network, titled Italy’s Borders Immigration Paradox: Rising Numbers, Falling Crime, and the Reality of Exploitation, Matteo Mantuano and I examine the dissonance between migration governance, empirical evidence, and public discourse.
Italy, positioned as Europe’s Mediterranean sentinel, remains bound by the Dublin Regulation, a framework that inadvertently manufactures a class of “involuntary immobiles”—individuals unable to legally relocate within the EU and thus rendered vulnerable to precarious labour markets. Within this structural bind, the caporalato system—an illicit network of agro‑mafia intermediaries—emerges not as an aberration but as the predictable offspring of restrictive governance.
Statistical realities sharpen this contradiction. In 2024, Italy registered 382,071 foreign arrivals, even as national crime indices continued to decline. This divergence exposes the profound gap between empirical data and populist narrative, challenging the persistent conflation of migration with criminality.
The article contends that the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, now entering its operational phase, risks perpetuating this paradox unless it confronts the structural contradictions whereby deterrence engenders vulnerability. Italy’s borders thus become a crucible in which humanitarian obligation and political expediency collide, offering Europe a cautionary tableau of the unintended consequences of its own policies.
Ultimately, the piece argues that meaningful reform requires acknowledging exploitation not as a marginal pathology but as a systemic outcome of governance choices. Only by reconciling empirical evidence with humane policy can Europe hope to navigate the complexities of contemporary migration.
Keywords: Italy; Migration; Dublin Regulation; Caporalato; European Pact; Political Rhetoric.