Legal Regime
The theme of Legal Roadmap hopes to answer one simple question in relation to the migrant struggle in Italy:
Where is the law visible in the border town of Ventimiglia and Bardonecchia?
A 3D Map of Ventimiglia—marked with places of legal significance.
#1 on the map
Train Raids
On September 30, 2014, at 7.20 am, a Congolese migrant was hit by the local TER train going from Italy to France. The man, who was travelling along with other migrants tried to cross the rail tracks, sustained severe cranial injuries. The accident, however, disrupted the life of commuters in one of the richest and most conservative regions of France. This echoed the Franco-Italian tension of 2011 that led to the revival of an internal EU border.
This is a border that shouldn’t really be there to begin with; France and Italy have both ratified the Schengen Agreement and have lifted border controls since 1997, when Italy joined Schengen. However, according to the Chambery bilateral readmission agreement signed in 1997 by Italy and France, each country is allowed to return “illegal immigrants” found in their own territory when it can be “materially proven” that they had transited through the other country.
Ventimiglia Train Station
In November this year, French police controls on trains were in full force. A team of national police and civil reserve boards trains, checks passengers and also looks at goods trains to check no one was hiding in or on the wagons.
The checks take place everyday on the Ventimiglia-Nice line. All passengers are also checked and asked to show their documents.
Which law is violated?
The Chambery Bilateral Readmission Agreement
From 14 December 2020, mixed Italian-French patrols began to operate along the border of Ventimiglia with the task of patrolling the borders according to the provisions of bilateral police cooperation agreements based on the 1997 Chambery agreements, providing for conjunct actions and cooperation between Italian and French police.
Bardonecchia Train Station
On 30 March 2018, French border guards raided the NGO Rainbow for Africa, which operates at the train station of the Italian city of Bardonecchia at the Alpine border with France. The guards, who were armed, entered the NGO facility, forced a migrant to take a urine test and intimidated doctors, cultural mediators and lawyers. The NGO Rainbow4Africa provides social, health and legal support to migrants and asylum applicants at the border.
The test results came back negative.
Blitz of French agents in the Rainbow4Africa migrant center in Bardonecchia.
Spaces of Resistance and Care
There are 2 evident camps in Ventimiglia where migrants temporarily settle till they make an attempt to cross the border.
The Italian Red Cross Camp and the Identification Process
At the entrance of the Red Cross camp there is a Police Office equipped with a fingerprint scanner. In line with the Dublin Agreement, once the migrants are identified in Italy, they lose the opportunity to apply for political asylum in other countries.
The Migrant-led Camp as a Spacial Response
The identification process explains why many of them preferred to camp by the river, fighting against a reception system that ends up forcing them to stay in Italy and prevents them from being free to choose where to go.
The fingerprint of a refugee is taken at the migrants registration center of the Patrick-Henry Village refugee center in Heidelberg, Germany.
Which law is visible?
Dublin Regulation
The Dublin Regulation prevents asylum seekers from submitting their asylum application in more than one member states. All asylum seekers are photographed and fingerprinted by Questure who systematically store their fingerprints in Eurodac.
Operational since 15 January 2003, European Dactyloscopy (Eurodac) is the EU fingerprint database for identifying asylum seekers and irregular border-crossers. Asylum applicants and irregular border-crossers over the age of 14 have their fingerprints taken as a matter of EU law. These are then sent in digitally to a central unit at the European Commission, and automatically checked against other prints on the database.
Eurodac enables authorities to determine whether asylum seekers have already applied for asylum in another EU member state or have illegally transited through another EU member state ("principle of first contact").
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The Dublin Regulation sometimes the Dublin III Regulation; previously the Dublin II Regulation and Dublin Convention is a EU law that determines which EU Member State is responsible for the examination of an application for asylum, submitted by persons seeking international protection under the Geneva Convention and the EU Qualification Directive, within the European Union.
#2 on the map
#3 on the map
Returned from France
“Illegal immigrants” are sent back to Italy based mainly on physical traits and racial profiling. This is in direct violation of the Schengen Agreement that agrees upon free movement of people across the Schengen Area.
Unaccompanied Minors
Some unaccompanied minors, including some whose apparent age was around 12 years old, say that they have crossed the border various times and were handed back to the Italian police forces by the French Gendarmerie: without carrying out any medical checks, they are apparently either treated as adults or handed to an adult’s care (or that of a minor who is considered an adult) so that they may not be considered unaccompanied minors.
Balli Fabio. Ventimiglia 2015: a visual story by Emanuele Giacopetti. Duty of care in Italy-France migration 2021.
Informal Handovers
In cases involving handovers from the French Authorities, the transit of migrants through the Italian territory is often assumed on the basis of a few pieces of evidence: possession of a train ticket or of sales receipts from Italian shops.
Which law is violated?
Schengen Agreement
The Schengen Agreement signed on June 14, 1985, is a treaty that led most of the European countries towards the abolishment of their national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as the “Schengen Area”
Zampa Law
Italy is the only European country which, in 2017, with the approval of Law no. 47, the so-called Zampa Law, adopted legislation specifically aimed at unaccompanied foreign minors. The law explicitly introduces the absolute prohibition of rejecting UFM at the border, which cannot be ordered in any case. They also have a right to be informed about legal representation, which should be provided free of charge, funded by the state.
Testing the Legal Boundaries
On 22 April 2018, 300 people left Claviere, a small town in the Susa valley in the Italian Alps, to cross the border with France.
“We walked together on the road that leads from Claviere, to Briançon on the French side. We were responding to the militarisation that in recent days has seen the border become completely blocked. But also to answer the action of the neo-fascists of “Génération Idéntitaire” who on Saturday mounted their own border post at the Colle della Scala pass. If the military and fascists want to block the borders, we will continue to fight to break them down.”
“The border is made up of uniforms, batons, and tools to identify and select people. It is up to us to find the mechanism of this gear, and so destroy it. The border is just an imaginary line. As we showed yesterday, it does not exist if we organise together to fight it.”
—Calais Migrant Solidarity Blog
Which law is leveraged?
Schengen Agreement
The Schengen Agreement signed on June 14, 1985, is a treaty that led most of the European countries towards the abolishment of their national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as the “Schengen Area”
Mauraders walked 19 kilometers both on the mountain path and on the road, while resisting the attempts of the French police to interrupt their march and reach their goal.
