Turin's CIE - International University College of Turin

If a CIE detainee has children, then that detainees’ validation or extension hearing will nearly
always be subject to the “best interests of the child” test under Article 3(1) CRC 32 . Validation and
extension hearings are administrative decisions “concerning children” because when a parent is
detained their child suffers a long separation from that parent, for what is often months of CIE
detention or even years of separation after a forced deportation. Similarly, if Prefetto 33 or the
Ministry of the Interior (Ministro dell’Interno) issues a return decision 34 (deportation order)
then they are also obliged to give primary consideration to the best interests of the irregular
migrant’s children when they decide whether or not it would be more appropriate to issue a
decree for voluntary departure 35 instead of detaining that migrant in an Italian CIE. It is
worthwhile to recall that under EU Directive 2008/115/EC, State Parties should only use
immigration detention as a last resort. States should promote voluntary departure by
establishing a general rule that “[a] return decision shall provide for an appropriate period for
voluntary departure of between seven and thirty days” 36 where there is no reason to believe
that this would undermine the purpose of the return procedure.
There is strong evidence to suggest that some administrative decision makers are not adhering
to their legal obligation to consider the best interests of the child as the primary consideration.
Firstly, there are situations that strongly suggest that the administrative decision maker did not
make a considered decision about whether detention of the parent is justifiable. Secondly, there
are questions as to whether administrative decision makers could be considering the best
interests of a child as a primary consideration in cases where they have detained a parent in a
CIE that is a long way from the region in Italy where the child lives. For instance, we interviewed
one lady whose nine-year-old daughter lives in Rome. The girl had not been able to visit her
mother because of the distance between Rome and Turin (670 km). The daughter was born in
Italy, attends school in Rome and resides with the grandmother who has a valid permit to live in
Italy: “The problem is that I am stressed because I cannot see my daughter […] I want to die,
because I miss my family too much” (Interview 11).
One of the two detainees who had actually seen their family since being detained spoke of the
difficult financial burden that now stopped his wife and daughter from being able to visit him:
“Also, she [my wife] cannot come to visit me anymore. Previously, I could see my daughter and now
I cannot see her anymore. They came to visit me three or four times [in the past]. My ex and my son
also came to visit. I have a good relationship with them” (Interview 20). This detainee had lived in
Italy for twenty years and he was one of the few detainees with family in the Piedmont region.
He was in his third month of CIE detention and separation from his two children.
Families are also broken up across the European Union. One detainee without EU citizenship
had been in CIE for five months despite the fact that his EU citizen wife and his child both
currently live together in Poland after leaving Italy and they would like him to come to Poland to
32 An exception might exist in rare cases where the detainee is parent to a child for whom they have no prior
contact. However, the administrative decision maker will still need to consider, as the primary consideration,
what the best interests of that child would be.
33 The Prefetto is the head of the Italian Prefettura (see glossary).
34 Article 3(4) of Directive 2008/115/EC defines a “return decision” as “an administrative or judicial decision or
act, stating or declaring the stay of a third-country national to be illegal and imposing or stating an obligation to
return”.
35 Article 3(8) of Directive 2008/115/EC defines “voluntary departure” as “compliance with the obligation to
return within the time-limit fixed for that purpose in the return decision”.
36 Directive 2008/115/EC, Article 7(1).
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