Acting on the authority of Mr. Salvini’s Security Decree, the police last week cleared out an integration center in Castelnuovo di Porto, north of Rome. Mr. Salvini said the closure of such centers, where about 6,000 refugee applicants across the country receive shelter, would save the state about six million euros.

Mr. Salvini pledged to carry out a similar evacuation of an even larger center in Sicily later this year.

Such moves continue to divide Italians. The mayor of Castelnuovo di Porto expressed disgust with Mr. Salvini and took in a Somali woman. Other residents rallied around children who attended the local school and a 19-year-old Senegalese striker for the local soccer team.

Mr. Orlando had supported the Sea Watch, the rescue vessel that landed Thursday, and even gave its crew a Palermo flag before they set sail. Residents in the Sicilian town Syracuse, outside of which the Sea Watch lingered, hung white sheets from their balconies reading “Let Them Dock,” and some families offered to take migrants in.

Mr. Orlando is hoping that he, and the mayors who followed his lead, had at least sparked something in the country.

“I played my role,” he said. “I hope I will not remain isolated and everyone will ask, ‘In my field, what can I do to be concretely against this?’”