The Rise of Return Policy as the Second Arm of Immigration Control: The Case of Italy

In Italy, as in many other countries, immigration control operates through increasingly restrictive and punitive migration policies on the one hand, and through forced returns and administrative detention on the other. At the core of this second arm are Return and Readmission Agreements with third countries, designed to facilitate the rapid removal of undocumented migrants to their country of origin or to transit states. Based on research carried out in Italy as part of the Horizon project MORE, this article analyses and highlights the rise of return and readmission policy—as the second arm of immigration control—within Italian migration policy. First, the article offers a framework of the political motives behind return and readmission policies in Western countries. Then, it traces the politics of immigration in Italy over the last few decades and the development of return policies. After that, the article examines the characteristics and trends of Italian return policy and readmission agreements between 2000 and 2023, focusing on those with Tunisia and Albania, and situating them within the wider Italian socio-political context. The findings show significant transformations in legal forms, accessibility, and operational features of readmission agreements, closely tied to geopolitical dynamics, migration flows, and economic considerations. In particular, our research demonstrates that there is a convergence of pushback policy and return policy into a single politics of a war on migrants, and today’s “Albania model” anticipates the changes envisaged by the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum and by the forthcoming European Commission’s EU Return Regulation.