00:00Welcome to a new episode of the podcast Integration or Re-Immigration.
00:05My name is Fabio Los Gerbo. I am an Italian immigration lawyer.
00:09Today I would like to explain an issue that is often discussed in Europe
00:14but not always fully understood outside the European legal context.
00:18The relationship between complementary protection, integration
00:22and what I call the paradigm integration or re-immigration.
00:26In the European legal system, immigration law includes different forms of protection for foreign nationals.
00:33The most well-known are refugee status and subsidiary protection
00:38which are forms of international protection based on persecution or serious harm.
00:44However, there is another important legal instrument called complementary protection.
00:49This type of protection applies when a person cannot qualify as a refugee
00:54but removing that person from the country would still violate fundamental rights.
00:59For example, European courts often consider whether expulsion would violate the right to private and family life.
01:07This means that judges may evaluate how long a person has lived in the country
01:12whether they have family ties, social relationships or stable employment.
01:18In other words, integration becomes a legal factor.
01:21This is where the paradigm integration or re-immigration comes into play.
01:26The idea behind this paradigm is quite simple.
01:30Every state must define the conditions under which a foreign national can remain part of its society.
01:36Immigration cannot be governed only by emergency responses or political slogans.
01:44If a person has developed a real path of integration through work, social relationships, language and respect for the rules,
01:52the legal system may recognise the legitimacy of that person's presence in the country.
01:58Complementary protection can become one of the legal tools used in these situations.
02:03But if such a process of integration does not exist, the legal system may legitimately move toward what I call
02:10re-immigration.
02:12It is important to clarify something here, especially for an American audience.
02:17Re-immigration is not the same as what in some European political debates is called remigration.
02:24Remigration is often used as a political or ideological concept,
02:29sometimes referring to large-scale return policies or demographic restructuring.
02:34Re-immigration is something different.
02:36It is not a political project and it is not about mass deportations.
02:40It is a legal concept.
02:42Re-immigration simply means that when a person has not developed a real connection with the host society,
02:49the natural legal outcome of the immigration system may be the return to the country of origin.
02:55So the paradigm integration or re-immigration is not about choosing between open borders and mass expulsions.
03:02It is about building a balanced legal framework.
03:06On one side, the system must protect fundamental rights and recognise the position of individuals who have genuinely integrated into
03:14society.
03:16On the other side, the system must preserve the ability of the state to regulate immigration flows and maintain legal
03:23coherence.
03:25From this perspective, complementary protection becomes more than just a humanitarian safeguard.
03:30It becomes one of the legal mechanisms through which immigration systems distinguish between cases where staying is justified
03:39and cases where returning is legally appropriate.
03:43And this is exactly where the paradigm integration or re-immigration may offer a new framework for understanding immigration law
03:51in Europe.
03:52Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast Integration or Re-Immigration.
03:57My name is Fabio Losquerbo.
03:59See you in the next episode.
04:00I'll see you in the next episode.
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