Italy, the Call is Coming from Inside the House
Meloni and Trump" photo courtesy of the Governo italiano is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Spearheaded by conservatives and inflamed by President Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric, policies, and actions, anti-immigrant campaigns continue to gain momentum across the United States. Canada and various countries across Europe have been home to similar anti-immigrant sentiments, with the growing electoral success of right-wing parties and more frequent instances of hate crimes, riots, and protests aimed at immigrant and refugee populations in these countries. Not only is this phenomenon deeply rooted in white-supremacist ideology and fascist attitudes, but it is also most aggressively maintained by the Western nations whose historic interventionist actions have contributed to the conditions that have produced so-called “migrant crises” they complain about. It is clear that the international community continues to overlook its colonial past and fails to take responsibility for the subsequent impacts on populations worldwide, and Italy provides a perfect case study. By examining Italy’s ongoing migration crisis, specifically involving African countries that were once subjected to Italian colonialism, the link between a nation’s imperial history and xenophobic present becomes extremely evident. In effect, Italy continues to evade the responsibility required to inform more just national policies, while simultaneously perpetuating dangerous narratives about populations and nations of the Global South.
Centered at the heart of the Mediterranean, the Italian peninsula has been a historical crossroads between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, as well as the Global North and South. Italy’s geographical positioning has always been integral to its sociopolitical and cultural identity. In recent decades, Italy has transitioned from a primarily emigration country to an immigration country, which has had significant implications for Italian society, culture, politics, and economy. Since the 1980s, the federal government has passed legislation to address these changes and challenges resulting from an influx of migrant arrivals.
The ongoing populist, anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy can be traced back to the 2015-16 European migrant and refugee crisis, sparking the rise of Italy’s far-right Northern League and Five Star Movement and triggering the adoption of more restrictive and less robust immigration policies throughout the country. A decade later, current Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her right-wing Brothers of Italy Party have prioritized immigration politics, taking a staunchly anti-immigration stance. Even before her election into office in 2022, Meloni had deployed warnings of “ethnic substitution,” and has continued to use similar dog-whistles, calling on people to “resist” an “ethnic and cultural dilution of Italy.” Meloni has continued this rhetoric by vowing to “secure borders” and recently passed a bill to legalize naval blockades, expediting the party’s agenda to “repatriate” immigrants, which also comes after a recent storm where hundreds of people are feared to have died while crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa. The new regulatory framework under Decree Law 20/2023 and its implementation have complicated Italy’s migrant reception system: reducing migrant support services and integration opportunities, increasing facility operating costs, and heightening administrative inefficiency.
Though Italy’s colonial involvement in Africa is thought to have lasted from the late 19th century to the mid-1940s, imperial pasts are never completely left behind. The nation’s ongoing “migrant crisis” and anti-immigrant character are precisely indicative of this truth. Many communities most adversely impacted by Italy’s anti-immigrant policies and xenophobic attitudes originate from previously colonized populations from Libya and the Horn of Africa. In 2024, 63% of migrants who reached Italy by sea departed from Libya. In 2025, other nationalities arriving in significant numbers included Somalis (5%), Eritreans (3%), and Ethiopians (2%). These four nations share a common denominator: Italian imperialism.
Contrary to the prominent portrayal of Italian colonialism as a “less bad” or “more humane” than that of Britain or France—with Italian colonizers often referring to themselves as “brava gente” (“good people”)—the reality was nothing of the sort. This Italian selective memory still very much exists today, shown by attempts to absolve Italy of its history and dismiss the harmful consequences of its imperial actions. Especially given the right wing’s priority to crack down on immigration with white supremacist undertones, the connection between taking accountability for the nation’s colonial history and today’s migrant crisis is unequivocal. Similar to other powerful Western nations—notably the United States—Italy continues to sweep its past of foreign meddling under the rug while complaining about the corresponding ripple effects and constantly pointing fingers at others.
In her book, Empire’s Mobius Strip: Historical Echoes in Italy’s Crisis of Migration and Detention, author, scholar, and professor of Italian studies Stephanie Malia Hom provides insightful analysis and utilitarian language to describe the current dynamic. She refers to an empire’s ripple effects as “imperial formations,” defined as “polities of dislocation, processes of dispersion, appropriation and displacement…dependent upon moving categories and displacement…[and] on material and discursive postponements and deferrals.” With this framework, the imperial formations produced by Italian colonialism in Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia have significantly contributed to the current geopolitical situation. Italy has a history of demonizing mobilization of various communities, such as in 2008 when it declared a “nomad emergency decree” targeting the Roma population, officially deeming them as a “threat to public order and security.” Before the Roma, Italy’s colonial authorities treated the nomadic character of the Bedouin tribes in Libya as a “clear and present danger.” Officials declared a state of emergency in 1930, which eventually led to the forced displacement and dispossession of over 100,000 Bedouins. The emergency decree also paved the way for their mass imprisonment in Italian-constructed concentration camps on the Cyrenaican coast. This lesser-known genocide is only one exhibit of the horror of Italian colonialism. Yet, given the enduring myth of Italians as “good colonizers,” as many as 70,000 lives were lost with little to no recognition.
This criminalization of migration has always taken root in the idea of protecting Italy’s national sovereignty. Racism and xenophobia have been justified as means of ensuring public safety, and pretty much anything goes in the name of state security. This undercurrent remains today. In addition to Italy’s catastrophic impacts in Libya, it has also been responsible for the extermination and subjugation of populations in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia from its early colonial days: massacres of Dogali in 1887 and Adua in 1896, the extermination operations against the Oromo and Amhara populations, and the Addis Ababa massacre of 1937—to name a few.
The ongoing echoes of white supremacist rhetoric by Italian officials like Meloni can also be easily traced back to a persistent ethno-nationalist quality of Italian national politics throughout its history. For example, in the 1930s, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proactively worked to expand the Italian empire, enacting colonial race laws and promoting state-settler relations in East Africa. He promoted a project to create a “New Roman Empire,” which involved a series of bloody campaigns in Africa. Not unlike the United States or other European-ruled African colonies, Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI) was operated according to a paradigm of public and private racial segregation. As far as public opinion went, Italians were generally “in agreement with their government over the subordination of the colonized.”
Hom’s examination of the enduring “imperial formations” provides a crucial framework to view migration from colonized African countries. Recognizing the explicit role of Italian colonization in contributing to the current political situation and debunking the myth of the “brava gente” is the only way to effectively confront it. Otherwise, the cycle of marginalization will never cease. As of August 2025, there had been about 15,000 interceptions at sea and around 35,000 arrivals from Libya in Italy. Hundreds of Libyans continue to die at sea during their travels, and for the thousands who arrive, they must still endure the bureaucratic obstacles and navigate a life in a new country. Somalis, meanwhile, are one of Italy’s oldest and newest migrant groups. Both first- and second-generation Somali-Italian experiences speak to the question of race, citizenship, and identity. Due to Italy’s hostile attitude towards immigrants and restrictive citizenship laws, Somali nationals and their children continue to fight an uphill battle. Additionally, Eritrean migrants continue to face similar challenges. An Eritrean refugee named Simon Tesfamichael described his experience, one that resonates with other Eritrean refugees in Italy and France: “I got my freedom. But I had no support from the Italian government. In Rome, I joined a group of 500 migrants living under a bridge. My medical condition worsened, but JRS Italy helped me to access medical treatment. I lived in a wooden shack. I learned the language but could not become self-sufficient. I didn’t have help to find a job. In Italy, refugees have no rights.”
The implications of Italy’s colonial past are extremely consequential. In Italy and other European nations today, the discourse of “remigration” has become increasingly pervasive. This concept fundamentally refers to a political strategy of mass deportation in order to “curtail minority—especially Muslim—populations.” France, Germany, and Italy are some of the loudest European actors pushing the remigration agenda. It is no coincidence that Italy’s contemporary politics fall perfectly in line with Italy’s historical tendency to scapegoat certain minority groups and restrict their movement, under the guise of maintaining an image of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic purity. The true underlying white supremacist motives are apparent in the blatant double standard of Italy’s treatment of migrants of various backgrounds. For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in waves of migrants from Eastern Europe to seek refuge in EU nations. The treatment of white European refugees in relation to those of African or Middle Eastern descent, however, has been starkly different. In 2021, while millions of Ukrainian asylum seekers were swiftly granted temporary protection by EU states, thousands of non-Ukrainians were forced to camp out on the Poland-Belarus border for several weeks—leading to multiple deaths that winter. The reality of Italy’s “immigration crisis” is especially ironic given the nation’s incapacity—or rather, unwillingness—to recognize its own role.
Meloni and the Brothers of Italy continue to foster nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments, while also promoting explicitly anti-immigrant policies that only deepen—to utilize Hom’s term—imperial formations. Unfortunately, Italy is only one illustration of a much larger conservative trend spearheaded by Western nations. The irony first and foremost lies in the victim-complex of these powerful global entities, as they invoke fear and stir panic by antagonizing non-white immigrants. As they do so to further their harmful ethnonationalist political agenda, they fail miserably at addressing their very obvious role in producing the reality that they so loudly complain about.
Carolina Javier (BC ‘27) is finishing up her semester abroad studying at the University of Bologna. She is a junior majoring in Human Rights and Political Science and can be contacted at cmj2207@barnard.edu.