Salvini tries to put focus on migration ahead of Italy's snap election
Italy's controversial former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has tried to put migration on the agenda ahead of the country's snap election next month.
He visited Italy's southernmost island, Lampedusa, and claimed just 15% of current migrant arrivals qualify as refugees.
Salvini also voiced concern that a migrant reception centre on Lampedusa was nearing collapse due to overcrowding, calling it “unworthy of a civilized country”.
The centre has a capacity of around 350, but there are currently 1,500 people staying there.
"Lampedusa is the gateway to Europe, it cannot be the refugee camp of Europe," Salvini told reporters after a visit to the island on Thursday.
"Who has the right to come to Italy, comes by plane, not on a boat at the risk of his life. Who does not have the right, does not come", added the leader of the League political party, which wants asylum requests to be made in the countries that the migrants are leaving.
Salvini is pledging a return to his tough-on-immigration policies should the right-wing coalition win the 25 September parliamentary vote.
The early elections were forced after his right-wing anti-migrant League party, along with two other parties, yanked their support for outgoing Premier Mario Draghi’s 17-month-old pandemic unity government.
During Salvini’s short but dramatic tenure as interior minister in 2018-19, migrant arrivals in Italy dropped sharply as he pursued policies of deterrence, including long government delays in assigning safe ports to rescue ships.
He is currently on trial in Sicily, charged with kidnapping in one such case, while the charges were thrown out in another.
“I remember that in 2018, 2019, immigration was absolutely under control. The fight against human traffickers
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