After building immigration facilities in Albania that now stand empty, the Italian government has decided to turn one of them into an offshore detention center. But this will only replicate the problems already seen in detention centers within Italy.
The facility in Gjader, Albania, was built to accommodate and process adult male asylum seekers that Italian ships interdicted or rescued at sea. Under the 2023 agreement between Italy and Albania, men from countries Italy considers “safe” would be disembarked directly in Albania, across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, and subjected to a fast-track asylum procedure on the presumption they wouldn’t need protection.
But Italy’s courts forced the government to bring to Italy the handful of men taken to Albania under this scheme, rightly asking whether the countries Italy lists as “safe countries of origin” are entirely safe for everyone and declaring that it would be unlawful to detain these men under that presumption. The European Court of Justice is expected to rule on the issue, but in the meantime the facilities, part of an estimated 800 million euros investment, stand empty.
So the Italian government issued a decree on March 28 allowing the facilities to hold undocumented migrants, currently in Italy, who have been ordered detained pending deportation.
Italy already has 10 detention centers in Italy where people can be held up to 18 months while the government tries to deport them. The government doesn’t deport many of them – in 2023, only 10 percent of people under deportation orders were removed from the country. A 2021 report described these centers as “black holes,” while a report published in 2024 denounced it as a costly and inhumane system.
Opening such a center in Albania will replicate the problems already seen in Italy, as well as add new ones, such as the obstruction of legal aid, which could frustrate accountability when there are credible allegations of abuse. And there is nothing to suggest this change will make receiving countries more likely to accept returns – the main obstacle to deportations.
This move comes shortly after the European Commission endorsed the idea of “return hubs” located outside the European Union in its recently proposed Returns Regulation. Attempts to offload migration responsibilities and move people out of sight are cruel and unrealistic.
Rather than chasing costly, dodgy deals to evade their responsibilities, Italy – and the EU as a whole – should invest in managing migration in a humane and rational way.