The Interior Minister wants to shift attention from tensions with M5s and demonstrate that he is keeping his promises. If not those on major works and the flat tax, at least those on immigration. And so yesterday, among the many posts with which he floods Facebook every day, the deputy prime minister triumphantly published the latest data on landings.
In the first two months of 2019 migrant landings in Italy decreased by 95 percent compared to the same period last year, writes the deputy prime minister citing data from the Interior Ministry. From January 1st to 28 February only 262 landings while in the same period as 2018 they had been registered 5.247. Therefore, the deputy prime minister continues, finally the repatriations far exceed the arrivals. The immigrants sent home exceed four times the number of those who arrived in our territory 1.099 people have returned to their country of origin, 1.013 with forced repatriations e 86 with assisted voluntary repatriations.

Salvini rejoices but the UN beats the government. In a report drawn up by the organisation's observers, despite recognizing the lack of an organic flow management policy by the EU, the Italian government is accused of not respecting the human rights of migrants. The report also recalls the case of the writer Roberto Saviano from whom the Interior Minister wanted to remove his escort.
However, the figures prove the Northern League leader right and are also confirmed by the latest monitoring of migrant flows in the EU area published by Frontex. The European agency that follows what happens at our borders notes that in the first month of 2019 the number of irregular migrants crossing Europe's borders decreased by a third compared to the previous month, December and by a fifth compared to the same month last year.
It is once again Frontex who points out that in 2018 the number of illegal arrivals has reached a historic low for five years even if the agency warns that "migratory pressure remains relatively high".
Arrivals in the last year even recorded a decrease 92 percent compared to the peak recorded in 2015 when over a million migrants arrived in Europe by sea: 1.014.836 the exact figure monitored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That was the highest number ever recorded. The majority of migrants arrived in Greece where they disembarked 856.723 people.
In Italy, however, the peak was recorded in 2014 with beyond 170.000 Arrivals, went down in 2015 a 153. 842. In the 2017 arrivals were even more than 100.000. You have to wait until 2018 for the first decline recorded when Marco Minniti was at the Interior Ministry and Paolo Gentiloni was at Palazzo Chigi. In February of 2018 arrivals had dropped to 1.065 against them 8.971 of the 2017.
While the League rejoices over the results, its Grillino ally does not fail to tease the deputy prime minister also on the immigration issue. The drastic drop in landings is good, comments the grillino Giuseppe Brescia, president of the Constitutional Affairs commission of Montecitorio. But it's not enough because it's the repatriation machine that isn't working. «Salvini is even more committed to repatriations. They are insufficient. According to the numbers released today, more than will be needed 75 years to repatriate all 500 thousand irregular immigrants", Brescia says.