Italy tightens the net against illegal immigrants.

Italy will seek to deport more immigrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before carrying out deportations, according to a written order from the police and a ministerial source; the police chief, Franco Gabrielli, sent a two-page memo to various police stations across the country on Friday, ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport immigrants, a week after the man behind the Berlin truck attack before Christmas, Anis Amri, was killed near Milan.

December 31, 2016, 18:58 AMUpdated July 04, 2018, 03:16 pm

Italy will seek to deport more immigrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before carrying out deportations, according to a written order from the police and a ministerial source; the police chief, Franco Gabrielli, sent a two-page memo to various police stations across the country on Friday, ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport immigrants, a week after the man behind the Berlin truck attack before Christmas, Anis Amri, was killed near Milan (Photo: Romulo Faro)

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) - Italy will seek to deport more immigrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before carrying out deportations, according to a written order from the police and a ministerial source.

Police chief Franco Gabrielli (pictured) sent a two-page memo to various police stations across the country on Friday, ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport migrants, a week after the man behind the Berlin truck attack before Christmas, Anis Amri, was killed near Milan.

The order, which was seen by Reuters, mandates that police take "extraordinary actions" in response to "increasing migratory pressure in an international context marked by instability and threats" to "control and remove irregular foreigners."

Interior Minister Marco Minnitti plans to open several new detention centers to hold immigrants before deportation, according to a ministry source, in a sign that Italy is aligned with European Union partners on this issue. .

The new measures on immigration, featured on the cover of several Italian newspapers this Saturday, are the first change implemented by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni since he took office in mid-December, and come on the heels of a year that saw record arrivals of immigrants to the country by sea.

The measures are also announced less than a month after the truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people, including an Italian woman. Anis Amri, the attacker, is Tunisian and traveled to Italy by boat in 2011. Italy unsuccessfully tried to deport him back to Tunisia, but he was then released from a detention center and had to leave the country in 2015.