Decision of the Genoa Territorial Commission of 18 December 2025

Complementary Protection as the Only Legal Laboratory of the “Integration or ReImmigration” Paradigm

The decision adopted by the Genoa Territorial Commission for the Recognition of International Protection on 18 December 2025 provides a clear insight into a distinctive feature of Italian immigration law that is largely absent from the UK legal framework: the existence of a residence mechanism in which lawful stay is directly grounded in integration.

By refusing refugee status and subsidiary protection while referring the case to the competent administrative authority under Article 19, paragraphs 1 and 1.1, of Legislative Decree no. 286/1998, the Commission did not resort to discretionary compassion or humanitarian leniency. It applied a precise legal rule according to which removal is unlawful when it is incompatible with the level of integration already achieved within the host society.

For a UK audience, this approach is particularly significant. In British immigration law, lawful residence is primarily linked to predefined statutory categories such as work, family life, asylum or discretionary leave, while integration generally remains a policy objective rather than an autonomous legal ground for stay. The Italian model of complementary protection operates differently. It is not based on risk in the country of origin, nor on vulnerability as such, but on an internal assessment of social reality within the host State.

Complementary protection rests on the recognition of integration as a legally relevant fact. Integration is understood as a real and demonstrable embedding within the social, professional and relational fabric of the country, assessed in a comparative perspective against the situation in the country of origin. The law does not protect the individual in the abstract; it protects a legal equilibrium that would be disproportionately disrupted by removal.

For this reason, complementary protection can be described as a genuine legal laboratory. It is the only procedure in the Italian legal order in which integration is not merely encouraged or promoted, but legally measured, valued and used as the decisive criterion for lawful residence. Other residence routes depend on formal requirements such as employment contracts, family relationships or enrolment status, while international protection depends on external risk factors. Only complementary protection places integration at the very centre of the legality of stay.

It is from this legal structure that the paradigm “Integration or ReImmigration” emerges. This paradigm is not a political slogan but the logical extension of a rule already embedded in positive law. If integration is capable of justifying lawful stay, then the absence of integration cannot justify indefinite presence. ReImmigration, in this sense, is not punitive and does not negate protection; it represents the lawful counterpart of an integration-based residence model.

The decision of the Genoa Territorial Commission of 18 December 2025 clearly illustrates this internal coherence. It does not grant permanent settlement and does not weaken the State’s capacity to enforce immigration control. It simply acknowledges that, at a given moment, integration has reached a threshold of legal relevance that makes removal unlawful. In doing so, it shows that protection and return are not opposing policies, but legally connected outcomes within a single normative framework.

Conclusion

Complementary protection is not an anomaly within Italian immigration law. It is its most advanced expression. It is currently the only legal model in which lawful stay is structurally linked to integration, understood as a measurable and legally decisive fact. For this reason, it constitutes the true legal laboratory of the “Integration or ReImmigration” paradigm: not ideology, not discretion, but law governing consequences.

Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Solicitor (Italy) – Immigration Law
Registered EU Transparency Register Lobbyist – ID 280782895721-36