CARA - Home of the Sant'Anna Regional Hub

Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (C.a.r.a.) is a structure where migrants who have just arrived in Italy illegally and who intend to apply for international protection are welcomed.

The Cara were established following the reform of the right of asylum, consequent to the transposition of two Community directives (DPR 303/2004 and Legislative Decree 28/1/2008 n.25).

They are managed by the Ministry of the Interior through the prefectures, which outsource the services of the centers to private management bodies through tenders. The agreements vary and the State pays the managing body a fee per day per asylum seeker.

With that amount, accommodation, meals, legal and health assistance, the interpreter and psycho-social services must be guaranteed. Often in the Cara there are other services such as basic teaching of the Italian language.

Since the stay in the centers is variable and not quantifiable, it is difficult to have a system that aims at integrating asylum seekers into the social fabric. Furthermore, the insertion of the asylum seeker is often undermined by the fact that these first reception facilities are isolated from urban centers and without connection services and by the fact that there are no second reception places, those of the Sprar network.

In the Cara the migrants remain for the time necessary for one of the ten territorial commissions competent for the examination of asylum applications to examine the request for international protection. In Italy, since 2011, ten territorial commissions and twelve sections have been operational.

At the end of the process, refugee status can be recognized, which equates the foreigner to an Italian citizen, or a different form of protection: subsidiary or for humanitarian reasons.

Or you can receive the denial, which you can make use of. If the protection is not recognized, at the end of the process the refused asylum seeker leaves the Cara with the order to leave the national territory in a few days. He thus becomes an irregular migrant.

Map: CARA - Home of the Sant'Anna Regional Hub