Human Traffic

Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu is fighting against the tide. Not only is Italy trying to stem the waves of illegal immigrants who make the perilous trip across the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe, but Pisanu is also struggling to make the issue a priority with his partners in the rest of Europe, where an estimated 75% of the immigrants who land in Italy eventually wind up.

Following the latest fatal voyage — a discovery last week south of Sicily of 13 Somalis who had died of exposure trying to make the journey in a rickety fishing boat — Pisanu estimated that several hundred had died on similar trips over the past year. Pisanu sat down with TIME's Jeff Israely Monday evening at Interior Ministry headquarters to explain his plans for waking up Europe to the human-trafficking business and easing Italy's own concerns over immigration and a growing Islamic community.

You have said that the deaths of the Somali immigrants off the coast of Lampedusa last week "weigh on the conscience of Europe." What exactly should Europe be doing to help resolve the problem of immigrants making the perilous journey to Italy? Europe still doesn't have a unified policy to regulate the legal flow of immigrants. Each country is focused only on the specific problems it faces inside its own borders. Europe needs to battle illegal immigration and human trafficking, while at the same time integrating the legal immigrants into our societies.

Why has the tide of arrivals shifted in the past year from Puglia to Sicily? The answer is in the collaboration from Albania, which is just one of 28 bilateral agreements that Italy has with countries of origin. In negotiating quotas of legal immigration, we have obtained close coordination for controlling the Adriatic.

Still the aspiring immigrants, even those from Asia and the Middle East, have found these new routes via North Africa. Is there any end in sight to the wave of new arrivals? Immigration is like water: you block it in one place, and new trickles form elsewhere that eventually turn into streams and rivers. We can't think about governing the flow only through containment and conflict, we need to have a policy that addresses the causes of immigration. As long as there are such deep economic, political and demographic divides between the developing world and the developed world, the people will keep coming.

The wooden fishing boat carrying the Somali immigrants departed from the coast of Libya. Some say Libya is not cooperating fully in the battle against immigration in order to put pressure on the E.U. to reconsider economic sanctions. What are the specific challenges in dealing with Libya? The collaboration with Libya has just started. Certainly, maintaining the European embargo, after the UN's was withdrawn, creates an objective limit to the development of this collaboration and the full application of the agreements. Libya is overrun by sub-Saharan Africans who want to pass through to reach Europe. With a population of 5 million citizens, Libya currently counts some 2 million immigrants.

Is there any truth in the suspicions that terrorist organizations are profiting from the human smuggling trade? At this point, the trafficking of human beings and illegal immigration in general has become one of the most substantial businesses in the world of international crime. If we estimate, and I would say this is a prudent evaluation, that 500,000 illegal immigrants arrive in Europe every year and that every immigrant pays an average of €4,000 to the traffickers, we are at a turnover of around €2 billion annually, which is certainly enticing to al-Qaeda. In any case, we have received signals of frequent interaction between illegal immigration, terrorism and the trafficking of arms and human beings.

You are hosting a high-level meeting this week of leaders of Europe's major religions. Why is inter-religious dialogue a priority for Italy's top ranking law enforcement authority? From now on we must focus on constructing an immigration policy with far-sighted choices for accepting and integrating all legal immigrants. They come to us for dignity, work and respect — founding values of our Constitution that we want to honor. And I have been convinced for some time that dialogue among the three great monotheistic religions can play a fundamental role in this.

What's your reaction to the court decision Saturday that requires a school to take down crucifixes in classrooms after a Muslim father argued that they were offensive to his two young children? The crucifix is not only a religious symbol, it represents 2,000 years of history and culture. Immigrants' cultural and religious identities must be respected, but they must also be expected to follow the established judicial and political system of our country. How can a court side with one Muslim parent over the wishes of [all the school's] Italian parents?