I diritti fondamentali degli immigrati tra emergenza rifugiati e crisi economico/finanziaria: quale ruolo per le amministrazioni?

The essay investigates the role of Italian public administrations in safeguarding the fundamental rights of migrants — particularly social rights and the right to health — under the combined pressure of mass migration flows and budgetary constraints. Starting from a constitutional reading anchored in human dignity, equality and solidarity (Articles 2, 3, 32 and 117 of the Constitution), the authors argue that fundamental rights belong to the person and not to the citizen, and that the "hard core" of the right to health must be guaranteed to all migrants, including irregular ones, independently of financial sustainability concerns. The analysis reconstructs the multilevel framework of sources (Italian Consolidated Immigration Act, regional legislation, EU Charter, ECHR, Constitutional Court and CJEU case law) and highlights how the gap between proclaimed rights and their effective enjoyment widens beyond the "hard core", where the Constitutional Court accepts reasonable restrictions based on residence or legal status. Critically reviewing the Bossi-Fini law, the 2009 security package and the Minniti decrees, the authors denounce the drift toward a "diritto diseguale" and the erosion of a solidarity-based culture. They propose a model of administration as a service to the person, supported by an "additional obligation" of cultural and linguistic adequacy, and call on Italian administrations to fully exploit EU funding tools (notably the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund) and cohesion-policy instruments through bottom-up, multilevel programming.