In a New Video, the Actor Calls the Albania Centers a Warning for Europe as an NGO Report Questions Whether Detention WorksRichard Gere has stepped back into the Italian migration debate. On October 5, ActionAid released a video in which the American actor criticizes Europe's growing reliance on detention, deportation and what the NGO calls the externalization of border control, singling out Italy's approach in particular. Gere has campaigned on migration for years. In August 2019, he visited the Open Arms rescue ship while it was stranded in the Mediterranean, then appeared at a news conference in Lampedusa urging the Italian government to stop "demonising people."The new video is built around a simple argument. "Fear is replacing compassion," Gere says, adding that people are being reduced to numbers, problems or threats. He argues that detention, deportation and sending people beyond European borders are increasingly being presented as normal solutions, and that migration can instead be managed without inhumane conditions, without weakening the right to seek asylum and without treating human rights as obstacles. The Albania Model Gere's sharpest remarks concern the arrangement Italy built with Albania, which moves migration control outside the European Union and away from public scrutiny. "In Italy, this direction can be seen in the growing use of detention centers and in the model developed with Albania," he says, warning that what happens there could become a template for how Europe handles migration in future. He closes with a message of shared responsibility: "We are all migrants." The Albania project has been legally contested since its start. A Rome court declined to validate the detention of the first group sent to the Gjader center in 2024, and those migrants were returned to Italy. The Data Behind the Appeal The video was released days after ActionAid and the University of Bari published "Trattenuti" ("Detained"), a report on Italy's Centers for Repatriation (CPR) and its expulsion policies for people without residence permits. ActionAid says its numbers show that more detention does not produce more deportations: Italy carried out 4,784 forced repatriations in 2025, of which 1,732 departed from CPRs. 6,835 people entered the CPRs that year, and only 25.3% were actually repatriated. Repatriations from the CPRs fell 45.1% compared with 2022, even as total forced repatriations rose. Katia Scannavini, ActionAid's co-secretary general, thanked Gere for lending his voice at a moment when, in her words, a narrative is taking hold in Europe presenting detention and removal as inevitable responses to migration. ActionAid argues that migration management should rest on transparent procedures, effective safeguards and respect for dignity, not on the normalization of detention. Critics Push Back The reaction in parts of the Italian press was hostile. The right-leaning outlet Il Giornale-affiliated political site Nicola Porro's Il Politico Quotidiano called the video "pathetic," arguing that the report's own figures point to a different problem: if only a quarter of detainees are repatriated, the critique goes, the issue is that the system fails to deliver removals, not that it exists. Other right-wing sites went further, with DCNews describing Gere as a "red millionaire" meddling in Italian affairs. That divide mirrors the wider argument. Supporters of the current approach say detention and offshore processing are necessary tools for enforcing the law, and that low repatriation rates call for fixing the system. ActionAid and Gere read the same numbers as evidence that the model does not work and carries a human cost. What Comes Next The video adds a famous face to a debate that has so far played out mostly in courtrooms and NGO reports. Whether it shifts opinion is less certain: Gere's earlier interventions in Italy drew the same split reaction, praise from migrant advocates and accusations of foreign interference from the government's supporters. The "Trattenuti" figures, meanwhile, will likely keep circulating on both sides, each reading them to support a different conclusion about what Italy's detention system is for. Ph: Denis Makarenko / Shutterstock.com

Richard Gere has stepped back into the Italian migration debate. On October 5, ActionAid released a video in which the American actor criticizes Europe's growing reliance on detention, deportation and what the NGO calls the externalization of border control, singling out Italy's approach in particular. Gere has campaigned on migration for years. In August 2019, he visited the Open Arms rescue ship while it was stranded in the Mediterranean, then appeared at a news conference in Lampedusa urging the Italian government to stop "demonising people." The new video is built around a simple argument. "Fear is replacing compassion," Gere says, adding that people are being reduced to numbers, problems or threats. He argues that detention, deportation and sending people beyond European borders are increasingly being presented as normal solutions, and that migration can instead be managed without inhumane conditions, without weakening the right to seek asylum and without treating human rights as obstacles. Gere's sharpest remarks concern the arrangement Italy built with Albania, which moves migration control outside the European Union and away from public scrutiny. "In Italy, this direction can be seen in the growing use of detention centers and in the model developed with Albania," he says, warning that what happens there could become a template for how Europe handles migration in future. He closes with a message of shared responsibility: "We are all migrants." The Albania project has been legally contested since its start. A Rome court declined to validate the detention of the first group sent to the Gjader center in 2024, and those migrants were returned to Italy. The video was released days after ActionAid and the University of Bari published "Trattenuti" ("Detained"), a report on Italy's Centers for Repatriation (CPR) and its expulsion policies for people without residence permits. ActionAid says its numbers show that more detention does not produce more deportations:

• Italy carried out 4,784 forced repatriations in 2025, of which 1,732 departed from CPRs.
• 6,835 people entered the CPRs that year, and only 25.3% were actually repatriated.
• Repatriations from the CPRs fell 45.1% compared with 2022, even as total forced repatriations rose.

Katia Scannavini, ActionAid's co-secretary general, thanked Gere for lending his voice at a moment when, in her words, a narrative is taking hold in Europe presenting detention and removal as inevitable responses to migration. ActionAid argues that migration management should rest on transparent procedures, effective safeguards and respect for dignity, not on the normalization of detention. The reaction in parts of the Italian press was hostile. The right-leaning outlet Il Giornale-affiliated political site Nicola Porro's Il Politico Quotidiano called the video "pathetic," arguing that the report's own figures point to a different problem: if only a quarter of detainees are repatriated, the critique goes, the issue is that the system fails to deliver removals, not that it exists. Other right-wing sites went further, with DCNews describing Gere as a "red millionaire" meddling in Italian affairs. That divide mirrors the wider argument. Supporters of the current approach say detention and offshore processing are necessary tools for enforcing the law, and that low repatriation rates call for fixing the system. ActionAid and Gere read the same numbers as evidence that the model does not work and carries a human cost. The video adds a famous face to a debate that has so far played out mostly in courtrooms and NGO reports. Whether it shifts opinion is less certain: Gere's earlier interventions in Italy drew the same split reaction, praise from migrant advocates and accusations of foreign interference from the government's supporters. The "Trattenuti" figures, meanwhile, will likely keep circulating on both sides, each reading them to support a different conclusion about what Italy's detention system is for. Ph: Denis Makarenko / Shutterstock.com