Integrazione o ReImmigrazione

Without integration, removal always comes too late: the Brescia imam case explained for a UK audience

Written by

Fabio Loscerbo

in


In March 2026, the Italian authorities ordered the removal of an imam based in the city of Brescia on grounds of public order and national security. The decision was taken by the Ministry of the Interior following assessments that the individual’s conduct and public messaging were incompatible with those interests and risked fostering processes of radicalisation within the local community.

For a UK audience, the legal framing of this measure requires some clarification.

Under Italian law, the executive may order the removal of a non-citizen without a prior criminal conviction, where there are substantiated concerns relating to public order or state security. Functionally, this bears some resemblance to certain powers within the UK system—particularly those grounded in national security considerations—although the procedural safeguards and institutional architecture differ. What matters here is that the measure is preventive in its legal nature, yet often reactive in its practical timing.

This is precisely what the Brescia case illustrates.

The removal did not occur at an early stage of concern. It occurred after a pattern had already developed—after indications of radicalisation had emerged and required attention from security authorities. In legal terms, the State intervened ex post, once the risk had already materialised.

This reveals a broader structural issue.

As in many European systems, integration is formally encouraged but not treated as a binding legal condition for continued residence. Migrants are expected to integrate, yet the failure to do so does not automatically produce consequences within the ordinary framework of immigration law.

Italy does, in principle, have an “integration agreement” (Presidential Decree No. 179/2011), a points-based mechanism linked to language acquisition, civic knowledge and social participation. In practice, however, this instrument has remained largely ineffective. It does not function as a decisive legal threshold determining whether an individual may remain in the country.

The consequence is a systemic gap.

Where integration is not operationalised through ordinary legal mechanisms, the system lacks intermediate tools. It cannot intervene progressively as integration fails. Instead, it is forced to rely on exceptional powers, such as removals on national security grounds, once the situation escalates.

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

The individual was not removed because he failed a defined, objective integration test. He was removed because his presence eventually gave rise to concerns sufficiently serious to justify an exceptional intervention. At that stage, the only available legal response was removal on public order grounds.

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

In this context, Reimmigration does not refer to re-entry or identity-based policies. It is a legal concept grounded in conduct: continued residence is conditional upon meeting measurable integration criteria, and return follows from their failure.

Under such a framework, integration becomes a binding legal requirement, structured around three objective elements: employment, language proficiency and compliance with the legal order.

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

Authorities would not need to wait for signs of radicalisation or national security concerns. They could act earlier, within ordinary administrative procedures, on the basis of objective indicators of non-integration. The system would operate ex ante, rather than ex post.

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

For UK policy debates, the lesson is clear.

A system that does not give legal effect to integration will inevitably rely on exceptional powers to address its failures. And such powers, by their nature, are activated only once the problem has already developed.

The Brescia case does not merely show that removal is possible. It demonstrates that without a binding legal link between integration and residence, the State is compelled 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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