What was Italy's Immigration Debate in 2018 about?

The mistreatment of LGBT+ refugees who try to escape their homeland because of their sexuality

Question: What was Italy's Immigration Debate in 2018 about?
Position1 of 3›: Italy's immigration debate was about improving immigration policies
Argument‹2 of 3›: The mistreatment of LGBT+ refugees who try to escape their homeland because of their sexuality

Unfortunately, there are still countries that punish members of the LGBTQ+ because of their sexuality. Italian refugees who identify as LGBTQ+, immigration is seen as a way to escape persecution and be accepted for their sexuality.

The argument

The LGBTI community still suffers from discrimination and violence even in the European Union, and the asylum process is one of the places that failure becomes concrete. The current version of the Refugee Convention grants the status of a refugee to every LGBTI person fleeing from a country in which his or her sexual orientation would be punished by law. The protection is therefore not in doubt in principle; what is contested is how it is administered, since a person can only claim it if the authority hearing the case accepts that they are who they say they are. That is where many Gay Rights associations have denounced the methods used by committees to confirm the asylum seekers' homosexuality. These methods would include invasive questions about the first coming-out, stereotyped parameters of manliness and femininity, and the forced vision of pornographic videos in order to observe the asylum seeker's physical reactions. What such tests measure is conformity to an expectation the committee already holds, rather than anything about the danger the applicant faces. And the consequence of failing them is severe: those who don't pass are forced to choose between living clandestinely and going back to their homeland, where they would be imprisoned or killed. The difficulty is compounded by what the process asks of applicants in the first place. The mere act of coming out of the closet is really difficult for some people. Many of them are still ashamed of what they are, or are afraid of losing the support of their compatriots. Others fear that they will have to face racism in the Italian gay community. An applicant may thus be least able to state their case at exactly the moment the system demands it of them.

Context

Many irregular immigrants are homosexuals running away from detention and torture. They should be considered refugees, but immigration committees have dubious ways of demonstrating someone's homosexuality. Moreover, many LGBTI immigrants know that if they come out of the closet they will lose the support of their native community, so they choose to be clandestines.

Premises

[P1]LGBTI refugees still face discrimination and violence even inside the EU, and the invasive methods committees use to "confirm" an asylum seeker's homosexuality — intrusive questions, stereotyped gender parameters, forced viewing of pornography — leave those who "fail" facing clandestine life or a deadly return home. [P2] Coming out is itself difficult — many fear shame, loss of compatriots' support, or racism within the Italian gay community — so immigration policy needs to better protect these vulnerable applicants. [C] Therefore Italy's 2018 immigration debate was, in part, about improving immigration policies to address such mistreatment.

Counter-arguments

Those who reject this Argument claim that, if homosexual refugees lived their life with discretion they wouldn't suffer any problem in their homeland. Also, some people believe that even if the "phallometric" exams are a clear violation of articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, they're still a necessary evil, because someone could pretend to be a homosexual just to get a refugee status.

Rejecting the premises

It can be our government's problem