In the middle of the night on November 3, a mother in Rome received a call from her 17-year-old son. He told her he had just been stabbed and believed he was dying. Just days earlier, a man was brutally attacked, beaten, and robbed by two North Africans while on his way to work. The next day, a bomb exploded at the entrance of an apartment building in Ostia, a suburb of Rome, on Via della Tortuga, shattering the front door.
The building was where friends were painting a mural for Simone Schiavello, a 19-year-old who died on October 16 after being stabbed three times during a fight. And on October 28, 2025, a 28-year-old Egyptian man was found lying in a pool of blood on Via Prenestina near Villaggio Falcone after being stabbed during a street fight around 6 a.m.
Rome ranks third in Italy’s crime index, following Milan and Florence, with data showing a steady rise in street crime, including robberies, thefts, and violent assaults. In 2024, Rome recorded a total of 270,407 crime reports, equal to 6,401.9 per 100,000 residents. Reports of sexual violence increased by 7.5%, intentional injuries rose by 5.8%, and drug-related crimes were up 3.9% compared to the previous year. According to Numbeo, Rome’s daytime walking safety score is 75 out of 100, while its nighttime safety score drops to 47 out of 100.
Italian influencer Lorenzo Caccialupi, who once appeared in a Charlie Kirk video in the United States speaking out against open borders, has returned to Rome, where he continues producing conservative content. A strong supporter of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, herself an ally of President Donald Trump who has praised Kirk, Caccialupi frequently condemns Europe’s open-border policies and posts near-daily videos from Roman neighborhoods where assaults and street crimes have occurred.
He is right about how the influx of migrants has changed Rome, not only in appearance but also in safety. Walking through the city, one now sees large numbers of migrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa: many idle in the streets, some running scams or selling counterfeit goods, while others appear to have no work or purpose at all.
Foreigners make up 31% of Italy’s prison population, largely from Africa and North Africa, and 67.5% of crimes committed by foreigners are attributed to illegal immigrants. Overall, they account for about 30% of all crimes nationwide. Among minors, the problem is even more severe: non-EU youths represent only 1.5% of Italy’s population but are responsible for 65% of muggings, 50% of thefts, 48% of robberies, 47% of sexual assaults, and 40% of physical attacks committed by their age group. Between 2020 and 2021, arrests and charges against minors rose by 14%, with nearly half involving foreigners, mostly second-generation immigrants.
Due to pressure from the European Union and the policies of previous liberal governments, Italy has become overrun with asylum seekers, legal immigrants, and illegal aliens. As of 2024, the country hosts about 5.25 million foreign citizens, roughly 8.9% of the population. More than 55,000 people, including 6,350 unaccompanied minors, arrived by sea in the first ten months of 2024, less than half the number during the same period in 2023. An estimated 600,000 illegal aliens now live in the country.
Italy’s migration crisis has been largely driven by EU policy and the compliance of past governments. The Dublin Regulation requires asylum seekers to apply for protection in the first EU country they enter, placing a heavy and unfair burden on border nations such as Italy and Greece. The system collapsed during the 2015 migrant wave, when both countries began bypassing their obligations by not fingerprinting arrivals, allowing migrants to continue north to other EU states.
Under the Gentiloni government (2016–2018), Italy rescued over 457,000 people at sea, prioritizing humanitarian concerns over national interests while receiving little to no support from the EU for migrant redistribution. In sharp contrast, Italy’s current Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has taken a hard line on illegal migration, working to restore national sovereignty, defend the nation’s borders, and confront the liberal and DEI-driven agenda that has eroded traditional values.
Meloni has expressed strong support for crucifixes in public schools, stating that “the crucifix belongs in places of education” because “the crucifix contains the values on which our civilization is built.”
The crucifix issue in Italy has a long history. Italy’s highest court has ruled that public schools can display crucifixes, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2011 that crucifixes could remain in Italian classrooms. When a school headmaster in Sicily removed Catholic statues and stopped prayers at his school in 2017, Meloni called his decision “shameful and offensive,” demonstrating her position on religious symbols in schools.
Meloni’s strategy for countering Italy’s inundation by migrants centers on border externalization, regional partnerships, and stricter enforcement against NGO rescue operations. Her flagship initiative, the Albania Offshore Processing Deal, signed in November 2023, allows Italy to send up to 36,000 migrants per year to detention centers on Albanian soil for asylum processing. Italy pledged over $214 million USD to Albania for infrastructure, but the program has faced strong legal opposition, Italian courts have blocked most transfers, citing international law violations. Despite this, Meloni remains defiant, vowing the centers “will work, even if I have to spend every night there until they do.”
Meloni has also forged North African partnerships to block migrant departures. The Tunisia Deal (2023) provides millions in aid to prevent migrant boats from leaving and to dismantle human smuggling networks. Italy has continued its Libya partnership, begun in 2017, funding and equipping the Libyan coast guard to intercept migrant vessels and return them to Libya. Her Mattei Plan for Africa, launched in 2022, invests $5.89 billion USD in African development projects to address migration at its source.
Since taking office, Meloni has made 14 trips to Africa, 11 of them to North African nations. Domestically, her government cracked down on NGO rescue ships through the Piantedosi Decree (December 2022), which forces ships to request a port immediately after a rescue and proceed there without delay. Captains who violate the rule face fines of up to €50,000, and repeat offenses can result in ship detention, several vessels have already been immobilized for months.
Meloni is getting results, but still has a long way to go. In 2022, Italy recorded 105,131 illegal arrivals, which surged to 157,651 in 2023. By 2024, arrivals dropped dramatically to 66,317, a nearly 60% reduction. From a high of 125,806 sea arrivals in 2023, the 2024 data shows a 61% decrease to about 54,000 arrivals.
The people of Italy are fortunate to have Giorgia Meloni, as the situation is even worse in other EU countries under liberal governments. While Italy faces serious challenges, immigration levels elsewhere in Europe are far higher. Immigrants make up about 8.9% of the EU’s total population, with Germany, France, and Spain hosting the largest absolute numbers of foreign-born residents, approximately 16.9 million in Germany, 9.3 million in France, and 8.8 million in Spain. In terms of percentage, Luxembourg leads with 49.4% of its population being foreign-born, followed by Malta at 28.3% and Cyprus at 22.7%.
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