A joint report by human rights organization Action Aid and the University of Bari has sharply criticized Italy’s migrant processing centers in Albania, describing them as the most expensive and least effective facilities in the country’s migration system. The study, based on data from all 14 operational repatriation and detention centers (CPRs) in Italy and Albania, calls the Albanian centers “inhumane and inefficient,” highlighting major concerns over their financial and legal justification
According to the report, the CPR facility in Albania cost Italian taxpayers €114,000 per day during just five days of operational activity in 2024. A total of €570,000 was paid to the company Medihospes, which runs the center, to detain 20 people between October and December, most of whom were returned to Italy within hours or days following court rulings.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has framed the Albanian centers as central to her government’s hardline migration policy, drawing interest from other European leaders looking to replicate similar facilities. However, Italy’s Interior Ministry declined to comment on the findings.
The report further reveals that by March 2025, Italy had spent €74.2 million on building the detention center in the city of Gjader and a smaller processing facility at the port of Shengjin. This amounts to over €153,000 per bed, significantly higher than the average €21,000 per bed in similar centers built inside Italy.
Despite having a combined capacity of 2,555 places across Italy and Albania, including CPRs and the newer Ctra facilities, the system operates at just 46 percent efficiency due to delays, poor infrastructure, and repeated damage. Action Aid’s migration expert Fabrizio Coresi called the decision to detain migrants in Albania “irrational and illogical,” arguing it inflates both the economic and human costs of repatriation.
The report notes that legal obstacles to deportation have resulted in average detention periods of up to 18 months, while actual deportation rates have plummeted. In 2024, only 10.4 percent of those held in CPRs were ultimately deported, marking a historic low. By comparison, the rate was already below 50 percent in 2014. Nearly 45 percent of those detained in 2024 were actively seeking asylum, and 21 percent had not even received expulsion orders.
University of Bari professor Giuseppe Campesi warned that the use of detention as a standard instrument of asylum policy reflects a “dramatic shift” that threatens fundamental human rights. Italian courts have increasingly intervened, suspending detentions and referring the legality of the new policies to European institutions. Judicial decisions to release detainees rose from 9 percent in 2021 to 29 percent in 2024. In one example, 89 percent of asylum seekers held in a new Ctra were ultimately released after being found eligible for reception services in Italy.
The authors describe the system as structurally violent, unaccountable, and detached from civil society oversight. The physical isolation of the centers—often near military or prison sites—along with limited access for NGOs and journalists, gives the facilities an “extraterritorial character.” All three of the new Ctra centers, including the one in Albania, are technically considered “border zones,” a legal designation that allows Italy to apply expedited border asylum processes without granting full legal protections.
Privatization is also central to the system, as most CPRs are managed by third-party contractors. From 2018 to 2024, Italy spent over €188 million on detention centers, with 58 percent of that going to equipment and facility maintenance. The system’s cost exploded in 2024 alone, reaching €96 million—more than the total spent over the previous six years combined. The average cost per center is estimated at €2.5 million annually, with a single bed costing €33,000 per year.
Since 1998, more than 230,000 migrants have passed through Italian detention centers, and over 30 people have died in custody. In the most recent period alone, three people died between 2024 and early 2025.
Elly Schlein, leader of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party (PD), condemned the government’s approach, calling it an “insult” to struggling Italians. “Giorgia Meloni must apologize to the public for the illegal and wasteful Albania operation,” she said following the report’s release.