1. Decree-Law No. 55/2026 of 24 April 2026, the ratification of which is the subject of this note, was submitted by the Government with the aim of amending the provision set out in Article 30-bis of Decree-Law No. 23/2026, as converted into Law No. 54/2026, adopted on the same day, 24 April.
The request addressed to the President of the Republic to promulgate a decree-law intended to amend a provision introduced by Parliament during the conversion of a previous decree-law, which the Presidency of the Republic itself had flagged as potentially unconstitutional, represents an atypical and unprecedented procedure. This procedure could highlight the superficiality that sometimes characterises legislative action in matters concerning immigration, rights and safeguards for foreign migrants, asylum seekers, or victims of trafficking. However, this note concerns exclusively the substantive content of the new decree and not the procedural aspects.

2. The provision set out in Article 30-bis of Decree-Law 23/26, introduced by the Senate during the conversion process and which parliamentary scheduling constraints prevented from being revised, amended Article 14-ter of Legislative Decree 286/1998 and subsequent amendments (Consolidated Law on Immigration), by providing for a monetary reward for lawyers who had contributed to the successful completion of the assisted voluntary repatriation of a foreign national. From the outset, the provision appeared to many to conflict with the right to a defence, incompatible with the professional ethics of lawyers, and contrary to the principles of the rule of law. As there was insufficient time to amend the text of the conversion law without causing the decree-law to lapse in its entirety due to the expiry of the conversion deadline, the Government’s decision, endorsed by the parliamentary majority supporting it, was to proceed with the final conversion of the decree-law, which the President of the Republic immediately promulgated, and to simultaneously present the text of a new decree-law, No. 55/2026, amending the controversial Article 30-bis.

3. The new Decree-Law 55/2026 of 24 April 2026, which must be converted into law within the following 60 days, introduces two significant amendments to the system of assisted voluntary returns governed by Article 14-ter of Legislative Decree 286/1998, as amended by Article 30-bis of Decree-Law 23/2026.
Firstly, the financial contribution from the State for the initiation of assisted voluntary return programmes (calculated at €615 for each case initiated) is granted not only to the migrants’ legal representatives (lawyers), but also to other representatives of the foreigners who support them in the assisted return procedure. The funds allocated for the payment of such services have been slightly increased and are expected to reach EUR 561,495 on a full-year basis in 2027 and 2028. The measure is intended to apply only for the three-year period from 2026 to 2028, subject to possible renewal.
Secondly, the decree provides that compensation shall be paid upon completion of the assisted voluntary return procedure, regardless of its outcome, including in cases where the migrant does not actually leave Italian territory.
A decree of the Ministry of the Interior, to be adopted within 60 days from the entry into force of the decree-law, will establish the criteria for determining which “authorised representatives” are entitled to receive the grant and under what conditions, as well as the circumstances under which an assisted voluntary return procedure may be deemed concluded prior to the migrant’s actual departure.

4. The Government’s proposed rewriting of Article 30-bis is in no way satisfactory, and it would have been preferable to proceed with the complete repeal of the contested provision and of the other provisions aimed at amending Article 14-ter of Legislative Decree 286/1998.
Therefore, the content of the decree-law, necessary to remedy the defect caused by Law 54/2026, should read as follows:

Article 1
Article 30-bis of Decree-Law No. 23 of 24 February 2026, converted, with amendments, by Law No. 54 of 24 April 2026, is repealed.

Consequently, in Article 14-ter of the Consolidated Law on Immigration, the words: “with the National Bar Council,” in paragraph 1 shall be deleted; in paragraph 2, the words: “and for the payment to individual legal representatives, by the National Bar Council, of the fees due to them, pursuant to paragraph 3-bis” shall likewise be deleted; and paragraph 3-bis shall be repealed in its entirety.
In other words, the new legislative intervention, which is undoubtedly necessary and urgent, should have the sole purpose of eliminating all legal consequences arising from the reform of Article 14-ter of the Consolidated Law on Immigration introduced by Decree-Law No. 23/2026, thereby restoring the original framework.

5. The reform proposed through the ‘corrective’ Decree-Law No 55/2026, as currently drafted, fails to address the fundamental reasons that rendered the amendment to Article 14-ter of the Consolidated Act, introduced by Decree-Law No 23/2026, inadmissible and contradictory.
Whilst eliminating two glaring grounds for illegality – namely, the restriction of the incentive measure exclusively in favour of attorneys (and paid by the National Bar Council) and the condition that payment be contingent upon the migrant’s “actual departure” - the provision in question retains significant elements of inconsistency. Indeed, it does not appear in any way reasonably aligned with the objective, repeatedly affirmed in European legislation and invoked to justify the reform attempted through Decree-Law No. 23/2026, of strengthening the institution of assisted voluntary return; by undermining the relationship of trust between the foreign national and the operator (whether an attorney or not) tasked with accompanying them through the assisted return procedure, it could end up reducing, rather than increasing, recourse to this scheme.
Although ostensibly aimed at broadening the foreign national’s options by expanding the range of individuals they can rely on for the assisted voluntary return procedure beyond legal practitioners, the reform strictly binds the migrant to rely on a limited group of professionals, all belonging to the same organisation: the implementing body responsible for assisted return programmes.
Consequently, the reform also undermines the professionalism of staff working directly with foreign nationals, as well as the overall effectiveness of initiatives aimed at promoting migrants’ rights and supporting their integration.

6. The first critical issue raised by the proposed measure concerns its adequacy.
The number of people taking part in the assisted return and reintegration scheme amounts to a few hundred per year.
The report accompanying the bill to convert Decree-Law 23/2026, submitted to the Chamber of Deputies on 21 April 2026, stated that approximately 2,500 assisted return procedures had been initiated between 2023 and 2025 (the actual number of departures is estimated to have been around 1,100, but even this figure is difficult to verify: data for 2022 and 2023 are unavailable; for 2024 the year from which returns were managed exclusively by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the latter reported having carried out 290 returns; as for 2025, the Ministry of the Interior,  as will be discussed below, reported the figure of 675 returns).
Consequently, the technical annex accompanying the proposed legislation projected an average of 800 repatriation procedures annually for the triennium 2026–2028. Based on this figure, the estimated expenditure on attorney incentives was €492,000 per annum (€615 per procedure for 800 procedures).
The technical annex accompanying the bill under examination, meant to convert Decree-Law 55/2026 and presented a few days later, based on the same data, revises the average number of assisted return procedures over the previous three-year period (2023-25) upwards to 830 per year instead of 800. On top of that, it proposes adding a further 10%, presumably in light of the wider pool of potential beneficiaries of the incentive measure, bringing the average number of assisted return procedures to be implemented in the 2026–28 period to 913 (the expenditure thus rises to €561,495 per year: €615 for 913 procedures), a figure that is nevertheless modest compared to the objectives underlying the measure in question, as argued below.

7. The first concern raised by the proposed measure relates to the surprising speed with which the figures have shifted: from an estimate, on 21 April, of 800 applications for assisted return per year over the next three years, to a revised estimate of 913 on 24 April, relying solely on the appeal of the financial incentive provided for representatives of foreign nationals. In fact, it does not appear that any specific research was conducted regarding the actual willingness of attorneys and IOM operators (the latter being the international organisation entrusted with implementing assisted voluntary returns) to modify their practices in a manner that would justify such an increase.
It is true that 2025, with its 675 assisted voluntary returns reportedly brought to completion, compared with 290 in 2024, appears to mark the beginning of an upward trend in this component of the return policies pursued by the Italian Government and encouraged by the European Union. However, it is possible that the increase is attributable precisely to the consolidation of the IOM’s role as the sole implementing body. One of the main recommendations contained in the Court of Auditors’ 2022 resolution to increase the efficiency of the scheme was, in fact, to entrust this task to a single implementing body rather than to several entities, as had been the case until 2023. The €15 million AMIF (the EU asylum, migration and integration fund) grant is currently managed by the IOM through the RI.VOL.ARE IN RE.TE. project.

9. Data concerning assisted voluntary returns are not easy to interpret. It should be noted, in fact, that assisted return measures do not concern only irregular migrants. Still, also foreign nationals lawfully residing in the country who may access such programmes as vulnerable persons, victims of trafficking, applicants for or beneficiaries of international or special protection, or unaccompanied minors for whom return is considered to be in their best interests.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of the Interior itself, in 2025, out of a total of 6,097 returns carried out – comprising 2,897 forced returns with an escort, 1,887 forced returns without an escort and 1,313 voluntary returns (i.e. those undertaken voluntarily by ‘compliant’ foreign nationals following the receipt of an expulsion order) – voluntary repatriations with reintegration support (all of which, since 2024, have been carried out by the IOM) numbered 675, approximately one-tenth of the total. To these must, of course, be added the spontaneous returns of foreign nationals who leave Italy of their own accord. The Statistical Dashboard of the Ministry of the Interior, Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration, confirms that 66,296 migrants entered Italy irregularly (‘landed’) in 2025.

10. The Court of Auditors, in its Resolution No. 10/2022/G of 12 May 2022, noted that “in the period 2018–2021, assisted voluntary returns with reintegration accounted for 11.06% of forced returns and corresponded to 1.60% of migrants who landed in Italy during the same period”. The Court concluded that “[i]n Italy, the implementation of VRA&R [assisted voluntary return and reintegration] programmes has generally produced results below the assigned targets.”
Applying the same parameters as the Court of Auditors and using 2025 data, we could say that assisted voluntary returns with reintegration account for 14.10% of forced returns and represent 1.01% of migrants who entered irregularly. Whilst acknowledging some progress compared to the situation outlined by the Court of Auditors in 2022, it cannot be said that the trend towards giving effective priority to voluntary returns and to those assisted for reintegration has become established.
Our country remains among those in Europe where the proportion of forced returns is by far the most prevalent compared to other methods, both in practice and in symbolic, media and political terms.
Indeed, there have been numerous occasions on which government representatives have proudly highlighted Italy’s contribution to the tens of thousands of ‘voluntary repatriations’ carried out by countries such as Libya and Tunisia in collaboration with the IOM; however, it is legitimate to harbour reservations regarding the ‘voluntary’ nature of these returns, as well as the positive outcome of these returns in terms of the migrants’ actual prospects of rebuilding a life in their country of origin.

11. If the aim is genuinely to prioritise voluntary return over forced return, not to implement forms of ‘remigration surreptitiously’, but to support genuine and informed return projects undertaken by migrants, the measure of ‘rewarding’ legal representatives and other professionals involved in the procedures appears radically inadequate and wholly disproportionate compared to the far more substantial measures adopted to prevent entry, restrict mobility and repatriate or deport irregular migrants to other states.
Instead of providing incentives to the migrant’s representative or to those supporting them in the procedure, it would seem more reasonable to offer substantial incentives and assistance (significantly greater than those currently provided) directly to the migrant concerned.

12. The measure introduced, although it no longer makes payment of the incentive conditional upon the foreign national’s actual departure, nonetheless negatively affects the relationship of trust that should exist not only between the migrant and their legal representative, but also between the foreign national and any professional entrusted with providing them with assistance, advice, and support in relation to a decision that may, in many respects, be dramatic and deeply distressing, such as that of assisted return.
The provision seems inevitably destined to sow mistrust between migrants and the staff tasked with providing them with assistance, fuelling the suspicion that assisted voluntary return is favoured not in the migrant’s interest, but for the staff member’s own gain. From this perspective, the measure may produce the opposite effect to that intended. By fostering distrust between migrants and their representatives, there is a risk of further reducing the already very limited number of assisted voluntary returns and placing irregular migrants in an even more vulnerable position.

13 These concerns become even more pronounced when one considers that the Government’s choice, following recommendations by the Court of Auditors and inspired by considerations of efficiency, has been to entrust the implementation of assisted voluntary return and reintegration projects to a single implementing body: the IOM, in this case. In practice, therefore, the reform grants financial compensation to officials of the entity that exclusively manages all stages of the procedure. The foreign national presumably has no real possibility of choosing the operator to whom to entrust such a significant procedure since, apart from the implementing body, no other entity can handle the return project.
The combined effect, on the one hand, of providing monetary compensation to the person who, acting under the migrant’s mandate, completes the return procedure, and, on the other hand, of the practice of entrusting a single institutional actor with the management, through its own personnel, of all stages of assisted voluntary return, transforms the latter from a procedure centred on the foreign national’s free and informed choice into a measure driven and sustained by an opaque interplay of governmental policies, institutional interests, and private incentives.

14. Finally, the proposed measure tends to undermine the professionalism of operators entrusted with representing the interests of foreign nationals accessing the return procedure. For the attorneys, even in the absence of any obligation to achieve a specific outcome, it remains highly questionable from a professional ethics perspective to conceive of their defensive role as effectively instrumental to the co-management of policies aimed at removing foreign nationals from the national territory.
Whether they are legal professionals or other practitioners collaborating with the implementing body, the provision makes it plausible to regard their actions as serving the objective of increasing returns and is therefore liable to undermine their commitment to the proper representation of the interests of the persons entrusted to their care.