Developing a new policy for legal migration is a topic of the European Agenda on Migration, in view of the future demographic challenges that EU is facing. However, many migrants are already in Europe as irregular. In contrast with asylum-seekers, who are persons claiming international protection due to the risk of persecution in their home country, irregular immigrants do not fulfil, or no longer fulfil, the conditions of legal entry or stay in Europe. Which future for them?

Based on events occurred in 2015, we propose three migration hypothesis for forecasting the stock of irregular migrants staying in Italy at the end of 2018: 1.Stable scenario: annual influx will be stabilized at around 170 000; 2.Increase scenario: 20% increase of the annual influx; 3.Decrease scenario: 20% decrease of annul influx.

The model allows us to measure the effects produced systematically by the failed asylum seekers. Results suggest that many of those claiming international protection are in fact economic migrants, and they will overstay in Europe without a ‘legal status’. According to the ‘stable scenario’, the proportion of failed asylum seekers overstayed in Italy will be around 23% compared to the amount of new immigrants arrived during the period 2016-2018.