A new migrant detention centre opens in Porto Empedocle: here's why

The hotspot opened at the beginning of the year with 280 places is not enough. In Porto Empedocle, a small village in the Agrigento area and one of the most important ports of call on the south-west coast of Sicily, an 'immigrant detention centre' is also about to open its doors, where the accelerated procedures for repatriation to third countries considered 'safe' introduced by the government with the Cutro decree-law can take place.

The opening of the facility was decided at the end of July by the Viminale, just as there were delays in the construction of the two new centres in Albania that should have seen the light this month, delays confirmed by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi during Question Time at the Chamber of Deputies last week. On 2 August, the Prefecture of Agrigento published a notice of negotiated procedure, without prior publication of a call for tenders, open to all operators in the sector, 'for the entrusting of the management and operation of the immigrant detention centre, located in Contrada Caos in Porto Empedocle, for a capacity of 70 places for the duration of seven months and, in any case, until the sums for which the tender is awarded are exhausted'.

The contract, worth EUR 787,500, was awarded on 8 August: from the two bids received, the commission chose the Oltre il Mare cooperative. Admitted to the procedure even though, in the single European tender document (Dgue), in the section on debts to public bodies, for unpaid taxes and fees, a debt of 18,266.61 euro is declared. A debt that, however, the commission noted, "refers to another company of which the same person was administrator, who is now the legal representative of the competing economic operator"; this is why the company was first admitted and then selected.

The judges who will have to validate the detentions in the centre will be those of Palermo and not those of Catania, who several times in the past have opposed their 'no' to the faculty of detaining a migrant coming from a country on the list of those considered 'safe' just to ascertain his right to enter the national territory. It must be excluded - Judge Iolanda Apostolico had written, rejecting the request of the Questore of Ragusa - that the 'mere fact that the asylum seeker comes from a safe country of origin can automatically deprive the said applicant of the right to enter Italian territory to request international protection'.

In mid-July, the Ministry of the Interior withdrew its appeals to the Court of Cassation against the decisions of the court in Catania and also requested the withdrawal of the request for a preliminary ruling before the EU Court of Justice. The Supreme Court, in fact, had chosen to ask the Luxembourg judges 'whether Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection precludes "legislation of domestic law which provides, as an alternative measure to detention of the applicant (who has not surrendered his passport or other equivalent document), for the provision of a financial guarantee, the amount of which is fixed rather than variable, without allowing the amount to be adjusted to the applicant's individual situation, or the possibility of providing that guarantee through the intervention of third parties, even in the context of forms of family solidarity, thus imposing procedures liable to hinder the use of the alternative measure by those who do not have adequate resources, and precluding the adoption of a reasoned decision which examines and assesses on a case-by-case basis the reasonableness and proportionality of such a measure in relation to the applicant's situation.