Integrazione o ReImmigrazione

Without integration, deportation always comes too late: the Brescia imam case explained for a U.S. audience

Written by

Fabio Loscerbo

in


In March 2026, Italian authorities ordered the deportation of an imam based in the city of Brescia. The measure was adopted by the Ministry of the Interior on national security grounds, following assessments that the individual’s conduct and public messaging were incompatible with public order and could facilitate processes of radicalization within the local community.

For a U.S. audience, the legal nature of this measure requires a brief clarification.

Italy allows the executive branch to order the removal of a non-citizen without a prior criminal conviction, where there are substantiated concerns related to national security or public order. This is an administrative power, comparable—only in functional terms—to certain national security-based removals in the United States, although the procedural framework differs significantly. The key point is that the decision is preventive in form, but in practice it is often reactive in timing.

This is exactly what the Brescia case reveals.

The deportation did not occur at the early stages of problematic conduct. It occurred after a pattern had already developed—after signals of ideological radicalization had emerged and required attention from security authorities. In legal terms, the system intervened ex post, when the risk had already materialized into a concrete concern.

This raises a structural issue that extends beyond the individual case.

Like many Western systems, Italy formally promotes integration but does not treat it as a legally enforceable condition for continued residence. Migrants are expected to integrate, but the failure to do so does not automatically trigger consequences within the ordinary functioning of the immigration system.

There is, on paper, an “integration agreement” (Presidential Decree No. 179/2011), which introduces a points-based system linked to language acquisition, civic knowledge, and social participation. However, in practice, this instrument has remained largely ineffective. It does not operate as a decisive legal threshold that determines whether a person can remain in the country.

As a result, a gap emerges.

When integration is not operationalized through ordinary legal mechanisms, the system lacks intermediate tools. It cannot intervene progressively as integration fails. Instead, it is forced to rely on extraordinary measures, such as national security deportations, once the situation escalates.

The Brescia imam case is a textbook example of this dynamic.

Authorities did not remove the individual because he failed a clear, objective integration test. They removed him because his presence eventually raised security concerns significant enough to justify an exceptional intervention. At that point, the only available legal response was deportation on public order grounds.

This is precisely the problem addressed by the paradigm of “Integration or Reimmigration.”

In this context, Reimmigration does not mean “immigrating again,” nor does it refer to identity-based removal. It is a legal concept: return is the consequence of failing to meet measurable integration requirements. The model is behavior-based, not origin-based.

Under this framework, integration becomes a binding legal condition of residence, structured around three objective pillars: employment, language proficiency, and compliance with the legal order.

If such a system were effectively implemented, cases like Brescia would evolve differently.

Authorities would not need to wait for signs of radicalization or security alerts. They could intervene earlier, through ordinary administrative processes, based on verifiable indicators of non-integration. The system would operate ex ante, rather than ex post.

In practical terms, deportation would no longer appear as an exceptional response to a crisis. It would become a predictable legal consequence within a structured system of conditional residence.

For U.S. policy debates, the broader lesson is clear.

A system that does not legally structure integration will inevitably rely on emergency powers to manage its failures. And emergency powers, by their very nature, are activated only when the problem has already reached an advanced stage.

The Brescia case does not simply show that deportation is possible. It demonstrates that, without a binding legal link between integration and residence, the State is condemned to act too late.


Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Lobbyist – EU Transparency Register n. 280782895721-36
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7030-0428

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