Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has given the ministry's regional offices two weeks to compile "a report on the presence of Roma, Sinti and Camminanti settlements" in order to begin mass deportations, according to Italian media.

In a Tuesday memo, Salvini laid out his campaign to "verify the presence of illegal camps to draw up an eviction plan," according to DW.

According to the Council of Europe, Italy has one of the lowest concentrations of these groups in the EU, with a population of between 120,000 and 180,000, according to the AFP. More than half of these people are Italian citizens who have integrated into mainstream society, AFP claims. Despite this, hate crimes and prejudice against Roma, Sinti, and Camminanti are rampant, particularly against the less fortunate, some of whom still live in unofficial settlements. -DW

In June of 2018, Salvini ordered a "Special Census" of the Roma community, saying that he planned to boot illegals from the country.

"I've asked the ministry to prepare a dossier on the Roma question in Italy," Salvini told TeleLombardia, adding that the country's large community of Roma, also known as Gypsies, was "chaos" several years after a crackdown.

DW reports that there are some 26,000 members of these groups living in emergency shelters or in vagrant camps across Italy in 2017, according to advocacy group Associazione 21 Luglio.