More than 34,347 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year. The numbers of arrivals are far greater than the numbers arriving in the same period in the two previous years put together; in fact, they're almost double.

It is within this context that Italy's right-wing government, which had promised to crack down on migration when it was elected in autumn 2022, proposed a new set of laws on migration, known as the "Cutro decree." They're named after the Calabrian town near the site where at least 94 migrants are known to have drowned after their ship got into trouble at the end of February.

The new draft law contains proposals to eliminate altogether, or vastly limit, the special protection status, which is typically granted to asylum seekers in Italy who are unlikely to receive full refugee protection status.

Also read: Italy declares state of emergency over migration situation

Special protection status in peril

Currently, those who have been granted "special protection" can work and live legally in Italy for two years, after which time they can apply to have their status renewed or potentially converted into another kind of permit.

Italy's League party, which is led by Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini and is part of the governing coalition, wants to remove the status all together, whereas the Forza Italia party, led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has proposed limiting its duration to six months, with a possibility of renewal thereafter.

The opposition, also made up of several political parties, meanwhile has pointed out that limiting the special protection status in any manner would be futile, as it would only result in an increase in the numbers of migrants present in the country but with no papers.

According to Italy's financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, these tensions in the right-wing coalition -- in stark contrast to the sense of unity within the opposition as far as the Cutro decree is concerned -- have meant that the decree has been stalled significantly.

More than 300 amendments

The debate in Italy's Senate on the proposed changes was slated for Tuesday but had to be postponed after the committee in charge -- the Constitutional Affairs Committee -- announced that it had not yet managed to fully study all the amendments proposed.

It said this was due to the fact that initially, there were only two amendments coming from the government itself, which then led to more than 300 proposed amendments to the law, proposed by opposition party members.

This, reported Il Sole 24 Ore, means that the Senate debate will have to examine each proposed amendment individually and vote whether to proceed on it, rather than being able to vote on passing the law as a whole.

The numbers of amendments were described by the committee's president Alberto Balboni as "a marathon of amendments with scarce relevance," according to the newspaper.

Despite of all these amendments and the overall delays, the "Cutro decree" is expected to pass in some form as the ruling right-wing coalition holds a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

Unregistered migrants

The potential consequences of introducing any such changes to the special protection status can already be observed across Italy today. Many of those who already are in Italy without official papers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, since they are not officially allowed to work.

They have to find work in places which will turn a blind eye to the fact they have no papers, either because they have been refused asylum and have been asked to leave, or because their papers have expired.

Since they are largely unregistered individuals, it is difficult to quantify the numbers of migrants who are in this situation, but estimates from organizations and agencies involved with migrants have put the figures at tens, if not hundreds of thousands of unregistered migrants in Italy.

Migrants helping the economy

Because of this, members of the public and civil society associations have held numerous protests across Italy in recent days to protest at the introduction of the "Cutro decree."

Some were seen with banners highlighting that the decree would do nothing to tackle the situation of rising migrant arrivals but would rather just lead to more unregistered migrants within the country.

One of the migrants taking part in the protest was Ivorian migrant Mamadou Kouassi. He told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that he arrived in Italy in 2005 after being rescued by the Italian coast guard.

"We live in this country, and we want residency permits. We want to work and participate in the economy and development of this country," he said.

Even the recent government-approved economic projections papers DEF pointed out that if Italy were to increase its numbers of migrants with permissions and jobs, they would actually reduce their national debt.

If, on the other hand, they reduced the numbers of migrants entering on regular contracts by 33% their national debt would rise by even greater numbers.

The government has repeatedly said that it is happy for legal routes to migration to occur, but has done little to expand the scope of such programs over recent years. Each year, Italy makes tens of thousands of work visas available for migrants to help in the agriculture and care sectors.

This year, reportedly the visas ran out "within minutes" of being opened up for applications.

'Immigration is a structural phenomenon'

The leader of the opposition Democratic Party (PD) Elly Schlein told reporters at one of the protests that in her opinion, migration "should not be continually treated as an emergency, to help win over voters at election time, as the right-wing have done for years in this country."

"In fact, immigration is a structural phenomenon that requires adequate policies, understanding and competency [to be handled properly]," she stressed

Schlein also commented on recent remarks made by Italy's Minister for Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida about immigration, who used words last week which Schlein said echoed white supremacist race theories.

Lollobrigida allegedly highlighted the need for Italians to keep having babies to make sure they weren't allowing themselves to be substituted by "someone else," reported AP.

Scandalous words

Italy has one of the lowest overall birth rates in the world. In some regions in Italy, according to national statistics, almost a quarter of registered births occur in families where both parents have migrated from another country.

Lollobrigida, who is a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, is accused of perpetuating a myth that is referred to as the "Great Replacement Theory" among far-right groups, which wrongly postulates that white European populations are being demographically and culturally replaced by Muslims and people of color through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans.

Schlein said that she felt Lollobrigida's words were "disgusting," highlighting that they also harked back to comments made by fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, who implored Italian mothers to have more children.

Help from the EU?

Italy has once again appealed to the European Union for more help in tackling the migration situation. On a visit to Poland earlier this week, Italian President Sergio Mattarella said that "no state, alone, can deal with such an epochal problem."

Mattarella added that he thought that what was needed was "coordinated and well-organized action" from the EU.

He said the rules that were currently governing the EU's migration policies were "prehistoric," referring in particular to the Dublin Regulation, which rules that migrants should register for asylum in the first EU state they enter and should be returned there if attempting to apply for asylum in a second EU state.

The European Commission's budget chief Johannes Hahn meanwhile called on EU member states to start taking in more asylum seekers from Italy.

"The coast of Lampedusa is also the coast of the European Union," said Hahn according to the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency.

"The people who arrived there are a shared responsibility. We want member states to relocate more [people] and faster," he added.

Italy has already received more than €250 billion since 2015 to help address the issue of migrants arriving on its shores. Now the EU is discussing whether it should release additional funds to help deal with this year’s sharp increase in arrivals.

With AP and AFP