Criminalization of migration, criminalization of solidarity
Eccedenze Organizzate introduces and moderates:
Stella Arena
Lawyer at the Nola Bar - ASGI
Activists
Mediterranea Saving Humans
In the last thirty years, in Europe and especially in Italy, people who migrate without documents, in the absence of legal pathways, are persecuted for the very fact of being in a territory - thus Art. 10bis of the Immigration Consolidated Act, which punishes not conduct but a condition: being “illegally” on Italian territory.
This is a mechanism rooted in the establishment of a security paradigm, whereby a complex social phenomenon like migration is read, interpreted, and narrated primarily as a security problem for the population of a given state. Over the years, migratory movements to Europe have been branded as potential vehicles for terrorism, widespread crime, and attacks on the labor market. A process that has led to increasing restrictions on the freedom of those who migrate, while also affecting citizens, with the emergence of forms of widespread policing that take the form of labeling people based on their presumed physical, demographic, and behavioral characteristics, as well as territorial management with the partition of urban spaces into accessible areas and “red zones” where the legal order is partially suspended in the name of “national security.”
The construction of the migrant-as-criminal - a device that operates on discursive/cultural, political, and legal levels - finds its scapegoat par excellence in the figure of the smuggler. If migrating people are treated either as “a risk” - danger to the native population - or as “at risk” - passive victims to be safeguarded and contained - the smuggler, the “human trafficker,” becomes the personification of those who endanger both the “body of the State” and migrants-as-victims.
If we recognize the importance of this figure in discursively and politically legitimizing the increasingly restrictive governance of mobility, we understand how the smuggler is an increasingly statistically relevant presence in the number of legal proceedings against foreign persons - despite very high rates of acquittals and dismissals - and, at the same time, how legislation has greatly increased penalties for trafficking and human trafficking offenses.
Alongside this process of criminalizing mobility emerges what we call criminalization of solidarity, that is, the indiscriminate attack from media, legal, and political perspectives on all those networks that practice forms of solidarity with people in transit. It is no coincidence that the crime
Organized Excess introduces and moderates:
Stella Arena
Lawyer at the Nola Bar - ASGI
Activists
Mediterranea Saving Humans
In the last thirty years, in Europe and especially in Italy, people who migrate without documents, in the absence of legal pathways, are persecuted for the very fact of being in a territory - thus Art. 10bis of the Immigration Consolidated Act, which punishes not conduct but a condition: being “illegally” on Italian territory.
This is a mechanism rooted in the establishment of a security paradigm, whereby a complex social phenomenon like migration is read, interpreted, and narrated primarily as a security problem for the population of a given state. Over the years, migratory movements to Europe have been branded as potential vehicles for terrorism, widespread crime, and attacks on the labor market. A process that has led to increasing restrictions on the freedom of those who migrate, while also affecting citizens, with the emergence of forms of widespread policing that take the form of labeling people based on their presumed physical, demographic, and behavioral characteristics, as well as territorial management with the partition of urban spaces into accessible areas and “red zones” where the legal order is partially suspended in the name of “national security.”
The construction of the migrant-as-criminal - a device that operates on discursive/cultural, political, and legal levels - finds its scapegoat par excellence in the figure of the smuggler. If migrating people are treated either as “a risk” - danger to the native population - or as “at risk” - passive victims to be safeguarded and contained - the smuggler, the “human trafficker,” becomes the personification of those who endanger both the “body of the State” and migrants-as-victims.
If we recognize the importance of this figure in discursively and politically legitimizing the increasingly restrictive governance of mobility, we understand how the smuggler is an increasingly statistically relevant presence in the number of legal proceedings against foreign persons - despite very high rates of acquittals and dismissals - and, at the same time, how legislation has greatly increased penalties for trafficking and human trafficking offenses.
Alongside this process of criminalizing mobility emerges what we call criminalization of solidarity, that is, the indiscriminate attack from media, legal, and political perspectives on all those networks that practice forms of solidarity with people in transit. It is no coincidence that the crime attributed to those showing solidarity is the same attributed to alleged smugglers: “aiding illegal immigration” (Art. 12 TUI). In recent years, not only in Italy, we have witnessed increasingly frequent attacks against civil society organizations and movements that carry out search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, that provide shelter and support at Europe’s internal borders, in the Balkans, in Eastern Europe.
The recent case of illegitimate surveillance, probably ongoing since 2019, against activists of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans represents a qualitative leap in the criminalization process, where solidarity organizations are treated as internal enemies to be monitored and repressed.
To analyze and reflect on how this dual criminalization of people in transit and solidarity networks is produced and reproduced, to envision together strategies to break this mechanism, we have invited to discuss with us: Stella Arena, lawyer at the Nola Bar and collaborator of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI) who defends those accused of being smugglers; activists from Mediterranea Saving Humans.
attributed to those showing solidarity is the same attributed to alleged smugglers: “aiding illegal immigration” (Art. 12 TUI). In recent years, not only in Italy, we have witnessed increasingly frequent attacks against civil society organizations and movements that carry out search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, that provide shelter and support at Europe’s internal borders, in the Balkans, in Eastern Europe.The recent case of illegitimate surveillance, probably ongoing since 2019, against activists of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans represents a qualitative leap in the criminalization process, where solidarity organizations are treated as internal enemies to be monitored and repressed.
To analyze and reflect on how this dual criminalization of people in transit and solidarity networks is produced and reproduced, to envision together strategies to break this mechanism, we have invited to discuss with us: Stella Arena, lawyer at the Nola Bar and collaborator of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI) who defends those accused of being smugglers; activists from Mediterranea Saving Humans.