A decade of repatriation policies in Italy: the study by ActionAid and the University of Bari

Repatriation policy is one of the issues that most sparks the Italian public debate, as recently happened with the case of false medical certificates to declare incompatibility with the detention of migrants. In recent years, more and more resources have been invested in the implementation of removal measures, leveraging in particular on detention centers and the forced execution of repatriations. But does this line work?

«ActionAid Italia» and the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Bari Aldo Moro analyzed the phenomenon in their study «Expulsions. An analysis of the Italian repatriation policy, 2015-2025". Published today, 2 October 2026 - together with the update of the "Detained" open data platform - the report offers the first systematic analysis on the functioning of the Italian repatriation policy in the decade 2015-2025. The study is based on data obtained from requests for access to Italian Ministries and Prefectures - in a climate reported as "not very transparent".

It is necessary to make a premise: to verify the effectiveness of the Italian repatriation policy, it is necessary to compare the repatriations with the removal measures that the administration is called upon to carry out, not with the number of people disembarked in the same year.

In 2025, of 4,784 forced repatriations, only 1,732 were carried out from detention centers. In general, last year there was a peak in overall forced repatriations, but those carried out by CPRs decreased by 45.1% compared to 2022. Yet, in 2025 there was a record number of entries into CPRs: 6,835. The number of functioning structures rose to eleven and the effective places to 883, marking an increase of 80 places. If overall forced repatriations grew by 22.2% - from 2022 to 2025 -, those carried out without prior detention in detention centers quadrupled, from 762 to 3,052.

«Data from the Ministry of the Interior itself certifies that these centers do not guarantee the promised repatriations and do not work. Yet, new ones are announced, and we continue to invest in these infernal circles from where people leave (and often return) in desperate conditions" said Fabrizio Coresi, migration expert for ActionAid.