Turning the securitization of migration upside-down. Mafia interests in the management of migrants and asylum seekers’ reception in Italy

As migration became a top security concern, a series of “migrant emergencies” unfolded along the external edges of the EU. Facing them as sorts of prolonged moral panics, national and European institutions imposed a variety of exceptional measures to control and govern the mobility of unwanted foreigners. The many facilities opened to detain undocumented migrants are possibly the most visible manifestations of a complex security apparatus established by authorities to target unauthorized non-Europeans and thus ensure safety in Europe. Yet, the functioning of reception and detention camps in Italy subverts securitized views on the crime/security-migration nexus. In Italy, security cantered policies implemented in time of emergency are exploited by criminal organizations to expand their activities and diversify their sources of income. The Italian Antimafia has repeatedly confirmed the involvement of the ‘ndrangheta clans in the management of migrants centres. By relying on data collected during a fieldwork in the island of Lampedusa combined with the analysis of judicial documents relative to the cases of Crotone and Rome, here we show how mafia groups succeeded gaining access to the substantial financial resources allocated by national and European institutions to deal with the permanent migration crisis unfolding in the country. The infiltration of criminal groups is facilitated when new public funding become available over emergencies, as transparency and due diligence tend to be overruled. This is even more the case when funding is made available by distant authorities in Brussels, when the attention of the public concentrates on a criminalized migrant ‘other’