Italy to charge irregular migrants €4,983 guarantee

Meloni demands €4,983 guarantee from each migrant arriving in Italy

Lampedusa has a resident population of around 6,000. In recent weeks, more than 12,000 people have landed on the island. Two new arrivals for every resident, with reception centers overwhelmed and locals describing an unsustainable situation. Giorgia Meloni responded with the measure generating the most noise: a financial guarantee of €4,983 that each irregular migrant must pay to the Italian state while their asylum application is processed. The Prime Minister announced it after visiting the island alongside Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

The stated goal is deterrence. According to official sources, the money would cover "adequate accommodation within national territory," the sum needed for repatriation, and "the minimum necessary means of subsistence per person." Four weeks of stay, 28 days maximum, with the bill paid upfront.

What the €4,983 guarantee covers and who must pay it

It is not a fine: it is presented as a deposit to fund maintenance and eventual expulsion. The figure, €4,983, is mentioned in the decree as a financial guarantee intended to cover accommodation, repatriation, and subsistence for a period not exceeding 28 days. After that deadline, the framework becomes complicated and the second part of the package appears.

From 3 to 18 months: the other pillar of the decree

The same government has approved the construction of "repatriation holding centers," temporary detention facilities for irregular migrants while their expulsion is processed. It has also extended the legal detention period from 3 to 18 months, the maximum allowed by European regulations. The combination is what causes concern: less time on the streets during processing and more time under administrative custody if return does not materialize.

133,000 arrivals and a signed deal with Tunisia

This year's figures are driving the decision. 133,000 people have arrived on Italian coasts so far this year, triple the number in 2021. Brussels responded with an additional €127 million to protect community borders and control migration: about €67 million for assistance in border control operations and the rest for the agreement with Tunisia.

That pact was closed in July, with Meloni and the EU involved, and replicates the Turkish model: Tunisia strengthens migration control in exchange for funds. Many of the new arrivals to Lampedusa, coming mainly from Nigeria, Eritrea, and Guinea, crossed the Mediterranean on boats departing from Tunisian ports. The foreign ministers of Italy and France have asked the EU for more support against what they consider "a European problem."

Can you charge €4,983 to someone arriving without papers?

Here skepticism begins. Some argue the debt works as a key: whoever incurs a debt with the administration upon arrival is excluded from any public aid, which acts as a deterrent. This part of the argument relies on how access requirements for benefits work: with pending debt, the tap closes.

Against this weighs the arithmetic. Most who reach the coast carry no documentation—some destroy it before boarding—and will hardly have €4,983. It is also argued that, without access to aid, the exit route is not repatriation but other income sources, leaving the state with an uncollectable credit. Doubt runs through all levels of migration policy: Who do you seize when there is nothing to seize?

Deterrence, showmanship, or looking at Australia

Another current reads the measure as a tax on the business. If the cost of moving people stops being profitable for those organizing transport, some networks might retreat. It is a hypothesis, not a result: human trafficking does not invoice based on the migrant's ability to pay.

In parallel, more forceful recipes circulate. There is the one demanding blocking departures at source, the one proposing copying the Australian border control model, and the one suggesting gender-based distribution criteria to order flows. Underlying it all is a recurring suspicion: that holding centers end up being, in fact, subsidized accommodation for months before distributing people across the rest of Europe via asylum.

Meloni keeps a striking figure on the front page and an unresolved problem: Lampedusa has already tripled its usual population while the decree awaits its processing.