Speaking at the Italian Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee on April 10, the central director of the immigration and border police, Claudio Galzerano told MPs that "In Italy there are ten migrant repatriation centers, and a total of 1,400 posts available in theory -- 1,398 to be exact -- but the actual availability is just over 700 since they are continually subjected to damage and fires despite the fact that stays inside these centers are short:"

Galzerano continued: "The law allows for the detention of people up to 18 months while waiting for all procedures for their repatriation to be completed. However, the average stay for those detained inside these centers is 35 days, not more."

"We use the CPRs (repatriation centers, Ed.) because they work: one out of every two detainees is repatriated," explained Galzerano to the committee.

"Until 2022, most of those repatriated from Italy to their countries of origins came from repatriation centers: over 70 percent. This percentage dropped in 2023, 2024, and even in the first few months of 2025 since we used more effective methods for these repatriations."

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40 percent of repatriations include a transit through a CPR

"Now, 40 percent of all repatriations include transit through CPRs," Galzerano noted.

"Currently the Gjader center [the center Italy built in Albania] can host 48 detainees, which will become 144," Galzerano said.

"The decree law currently being converted established that those detained in a national repatriation center and whose stay has been authorized by the judicial authorities can be moved to the Gjader repatriation center. This means using this area to increase the number of posts available in national repatriation centers," he underscored.

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Freeing up places

Galzerano stressed that, "if the CPRs work, being able to count on additional posts to complete the activities of consular recognition in preparation for the repatriation becomes essential. The 48 posts in Gjader are a true CPR with all the necessary authorizations and in compliance with the Italy-Albania Memorandum of Understanding, which should not be changed in the least since it already made it possible to do this. The ratification law is the only thing that should be changed, broadening the range of those who can get access to the inside of the center to those already detained and who have been authorized to be detained by the judicial authorities. The advantage is to have 15 percent more posts compared with the number we have available and thus to facilitate the number of repatriations."

The central director of immigration and border police added that "the opening of the Gjader center enables us to free up posts in the national CPR network in line with a principle of communicating vessels, i.e. we move them from one place to another."

"This is a prerogative that the law assigns to my central direction, which assigns and moves the detainees from one CPR to another according to needs," he stressed.