Territorial councils for immigration

The Territorial Councils for Immigration are essential bodies which locally monitor the presence of foreigners on the territory as well as the capacity to absorb the migration flows. They constitute a real resource for solving, together with different institutional and non institutional subjects, issues related to migration, as well as for promoting integration initiatives and sending proposals, which are worked out on the local scale, to the “centre”.

Set up in all “Prefetture” by a Presidential Decree dated 18 December 1999, they are chaired by the “Prefetto” (the head of the “Prefettura”) and made up of representatives from the relevant local administrations of the State, of the Region, of Local Bodies, of the chamber of commerce, of the bodies which are locally active in the field of assistance to immigrants, of workers’ associations, of  employers and of third-country nationals.

STRATEGIC FUNCTION FOR AN ORGANIC IMMIGRATION POLICY

The Department for Civil Liberties and Immigration manages the network of contact points of the Territorial Councils, thus ensuring the necessary connection between the centre and the territory as well as the implementation of similar approaches with regard to actions related to immigration all over the territory.

Initiatives taken on the local scale aim at facilitating and promoting:

• a close cooperation between the institutions
• a wide social consultation between the different subjects operating on the territory with regard to the analysis of foreigner nationals’ needs and problems
• the planning of immigrants’ social integration policies, to be fitted for the different territorial conditions
• the implementation of effective assistance and social integration actions for the benefit of foreigners