ROME – The Mayor of Gallarate, a small town in the Varese region of northern Italy has reportedly paid from his own pocket to rid the town of migrants, according to La Repubblica, La Stampa and Milano Today.

 According to Repubblica, Andrea Cassini, the town’s first citizen personally assisted in the removal of the migrants from a building in the town on Tuesday, whom he has allegedly refused asylum to.

 He is said to have accompanied them to the local train station where he paid 90 euros for some of them to board a train to Milan.

 Cassini wrote on his Facebook page, as reported in La Stampa, that “they are free to go where they feel more opportunity. From my part, I want to facilitate their journey towards cities more welcoming and with more opportunities than Gallarate.”

 However, the Mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, hit back, calling Cassini’s actions “a provocation. The problem is serious, I not that someone does his part and others not. And this is unpleasant.”

 Those that were sent from the town were intercepted according to Pierfrancesco Majorino, a councillor in Milan, and temporarily housed in a shelter. Majorino argued, in another facebook post that he hoped the migrants would be returned to their previous home and that Gallerate’s First Citizen would apologise.

 Meanwhile, the Lombardy secretary of the League, Paolo Grimaldi, did nothing to cool the polemics by wading in the issue, arguing that “the mayor has done well.”

 Grimaldi attempted to use the case to launch an attack on the previous management of immigration in the country. “I find it shameful,” he added, “that the Interior Minister has abandoned these people.”

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