Hierarchies of Solidarity: How Italian MPs Frame Migrants and Refugees

How do Italian MPs frame migrants? This study presents a large-scale computational analysis of migration-related discourse in Italian parliamentary debates between 2008 and 2025. Relying on open-source Large Language Models, it identifies speeches related to migration in the Chamber of Deputies and annotates each statement with its stance toward migrants (solidarity vs. anti solidarity). The analysis then tracks the net tone toward migrants across time and political parties and constructs a longitudinal index of Stance Toward Immigrants at the party level. In a second step, the study identifies the specific narratives employed by MPs and the migrant groups to which they refer in their speeches. The findings reveal marked variation in how different migrant groups are constructed in parliamentary discourse. While restrictive and exclusionary frames are prominent in debates about irregular migrants and boat arrivals, discussions of Ukrainian refugees are characterized by a distinctly more solidaristic tone, emphasizing welcome, protection, and humanitarian obligations. By contrast, Syrians and other non European refugee groups are also associated with security, burden, or welfare competition frames. These group-specific patterns suggest that who is defined as a “refugee” versus a generic “migrant” or “immigrant” is central to Italian parliamentary debates. Differentiating between migrants and refugees, and between Ukrainian and other refugee groups, uncovers systematic hierarchies of deservingness embedded in political narratives and highlights the conditional and selective nature of solidarity toward people on the move in contemporary Italy.