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Entrapping Asylum Seekers pp 217–245Cite as

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Funding Precarity: Non-profit Organization and Refugee Negotiation of Italian and European Asylum Policies

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Abstract

This chapter condenses some of the results that were collected from a long ethnographic study conducted in Piedmont, Italy, between late 2007 and early 2011. The main objective was to analyse one of the most common misrepresentations about refugees; that is, they are offered preferential support and opportunities by the institutional reception system that a ‘normal’ economic migrant does not receive. The main results challenge this assumption and demonstrate that refugees face huge difficulties in achieving a level of social recognition that would make them hearable by the host country’s citizens and by the reception system more broadly, and that, in this context, the practices of resistance undertaken by refugees turn into dramatic situations in which refugees’ physical and mental integrity is jeopardized. The result is a system that does not support refugees in achieving autonomy and, actually, increases their vulnerability, trapping them at a lower level of the Italian social ladder.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Territorial Commissions for Refugee Status Recognition (Commissioni territoriali per il riconoscimento della protezione internazionale) are the only authorities competent for the substantive asylum interview (LD 119/2014, which modifies Article 4 LD 25/2008). They are nationally coordinated by the Department of Civil Liberties and Immigration, Ministry of Interior. In Turin, the Commission was established in the summer of 2008. Before that, asylum claimants residing in Turin were referred to other Commissions in other Italian cities.

  2. 2.

    See the section on ‘The Aleatory Italian Reception System’.

  3. 3.

    See also the works of Cooley (1902, 1998), and Thomas and Znaniecki (1927).

  4. 4.

    By law, after six months the claimant can ask for a special work permit as an asylum claimant, but the time needed to obtain it is long—at the time of my fieldwork, more than two months—with the consequence that the claimant is still unable to work, forced to keep receiving social assistance while awaiting their interview, and not in possession of a long-term residency permit.

  5. 5.

    There are four possible results that can arise out of a Commission’s decision (cf. Manocchi 2012): (1) the recognition of refugee status stipulated under the 1951 Refugee Convention (adopted by Italian legislation in 1954, law 722); (2) the concession of a three-year temporary residency permit, as a subsidiary form of protection; (3) a one-year residency permit for humanitarian reasons; and (4) the applicant may receive a denial, against which they may appeal at ordinary court.

  6. 6.

    The formal committees set up by the Italian national authorities to investigate the results of the Dublin Regulation emphasize the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of this system, as well as the negative impact on asylum seekers and refugees (Central Service SPRAR, Servizio di Protezione Richiedenti Asilo e Rifugiati—System for the Protection of Asylum Seekers and Refugees).

  7. 7.

    As it is possible to read in the latest EASO annual reports (2016 related to the situation in 2015, and 2015 related to the situation in 2014), Italy implemented a series of improvements in all aspects of the asylum claimant process and the reception system, especially increasing the number of available spots in the national System for the Protection of Asylum Seekers and Refugees. However, although it is important in this chapter to refer to the situation at the time of the fieldwork in order to support the conclusions and arguments I propose, it is worthwhile to note here that, even after the changes were introduced, non-profit and practitioner organizations (such as the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration—ASGI) still highlight several issues that remain present in terms of accommodation and social integration support.

  8. 8.

    Bolzoni et al. (2015) highlight that, ‘Within the Italian legal order, the notion of residency corresponds to the place in which a person is settled (Art. 43 of the Civil Code), and develops into a well-defined formal status when the registration at the municipal registry office takes place (Law n. 1228 of 1954 and the Decree of the President of the Republic n. 223 of 1989). Through local registration, therefore, the effective recognition of residency materialises’ (pp. 405–6).

  9. 9.

    At the moment of the final editing of this chapter (end of 2016), the Italian reception system was going through a huge reorganization aimed at changing municipalities’ voluntary involvement to encompass a more systematic engagement of them. Shortly thereafter, instead of needing to propose a temporary project, municipalities had to go through an accreditation process in order to become formally entitled to receive systematic and continued national support. The positive impacts of this change are not clear, because the participation of municipalities is still not mandatory, and if they do not want to go through the accreditation process, the Italian system will continue to be undersized. However, the negative consequences remain very clear. Through the process of accreditation, a series of formal requirements will be requested, and several of the current non-profit organizations that are running reception projects will not be able to adequately meet those requirements, creating a serious risk that they will have to exit the system, meaning that all of their experience and expertise will be lost.

  10. 10.

    Decreto del capo dipartimento Libertà civili e Immigrazione 17 settembre 2013, available at (Italian text): http://www1.interno.gov.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/assets/files/27/2013_09_18_capacitx_ricettiva_SPRAR_2014_2016.pdf.

  11. 11.

    As source, consult the annual reports on the SPRAR website prepared by the Central Service, Ministry of the Interior (www.serviziocentrale.it). See also the previous note no. 12, about the current changes in the Italian system.

  12. 12.

    Now in its third edition, issued in 2013 through the Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013, the Dublin Regulation establishes the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or stateless person.

  13. 13.

    This labelling process is also present in the current European Refugee Fund (ERF) grants, which specifically target people who are able to demonstrate vulnerabilities, such as chronic disease, mental health issues and disabilities, or who are single parents and elderly people (see below).

  14. 14.

    As Zetter points out ‘Labels do not exist in a vacuum. They are the tangible representation of policies and programmes, in which labels are not only formed but are then also transformed by bureaucratic processes which institutionalize and differentiate categories of eligibility and entitlements. In this way, labels develop their own rationale and legitimacy and become a convenient and accepted shorthand’ (2007, p. 180).

  15. 15.

    During this period, I worked on four annual projects with the involvement of more than 20 organizations, consisting of leading non-profit organizations (which were the recipients of the European funds), supportive organizations and voluntary associations.

  16. 16.

    These courses were the most popular at the time of my fieldwork.

  17. 17.

    As mentioned above, the Dublin Regulation impedes the free circulation of asylum seekers and refugees within European borders, instead, forcing refugees to stay in the first country that took their fingerprints because that is the only country entitled to manage their case.

  18. 18.

    That phase of social and economic integration that follows the first period of the reception during which the focus is on the formal reception of the refugee and the provision of services for basic needs.

  19. 19.

    Available here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/treaty/pdf/amst-en.pdf.

  20. 20.

    Available here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/SCH.ACQUIS-EN.pdf.

  21. 21.

    Available here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C:2012:326:TOC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Western Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Michele Manocchi

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  1. Michele Manocchi
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  1. Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Francesco Vecchio

  2. Centre for Law and Justice, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

    Alison Gerard

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Manocchi, M. (2017). Funding Precarity: Non-profit Organization and Refugee Negotiation of Italian and European Asylum Policies. In: Vecchio, F., Gerard, A. (eds) Entrapping Asylum Seekers. Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58739-8_9

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