(CNN) Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has doubled down on his proposal that the country carries out a census of its Roma population, rejecting critics who accused him of racism.

The hard-line, anti-immigration minister complained on Facebook , saying that if the left had proposed the census, it wouldn't be a problem, but the plan is considered racist entirely because he put it forward. "I won't give up and I'll move ahead," he wrote on Tuesday.

Salvini's proposal caused outrage among members of the opposition and Jewish organizations, who drew parallels with race laws approved during the regime of Benito Mussolini.

"I am having the Interior Ministry prepare a dossier on the Roma situation in Italy," Salvini told TeleLombardia, a northern Italian TV station, on Monday.

"We will try to understand how we can intervene, doing what years ago was called the census, we can now call it the registry or the situation, a picture -- to understand what we are dealing with," he added.

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