Today, the Mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, sent a letter to the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs to ask for a solution to the immigrant crisis in the City. Considering the unending papal support for the continuous flow of new groups from North Africa and the Middle East into Italy, the stage is certainly set for a great confrontation on the issue.
The following is our translation of a text posted by the Mayor on her Facebook account:
Rome is undergoing a strong migratory pressure. We cannot go on like this. I have sent in the past few days a letter to the Prefect* of Rome to demand of the Ministry of the Interior a moratorium on new arrivals of migrants in the City.
From the first day of our inauguration, we have worked very hard on the issue of immigration. With the Prefecture, there is a great rapport of collaboration and debate on such a complex theme. The emergency of the shelters [for new arrivals] is one of the several we inherited. An emergency that is made worse also by the inertia of those who, throughout the years, should have taken care of assistance to the migrants.We will not allow anymore that anyone should eat out of the weakest. And at the same moment it is time to listen to the Roman citizens: we cannot allow the creation of additional social tensions. For this reason, I find it impossible, and also risky, to create new structures of shelter.I truly hope that this new appeal does not fall on deaf years. And, above all, that the [National] Government take account of my words at the moment in which they have to decide where to send new migrants. I will demand a meeting with the responsible person at the Viminale [the Palace of the Ministry of the Interior] for an intervention on the issue of out-of-control arrivals.
[* Note: the Prefect, head of the Prefecture, is the local high representative of the national government.]
Well, as usual, there are the cheap demagogues. And then there are those who have to manage reality, including the grave tensions between Romans and the new arrivals, about to escalate into something extremely serious.
