According to the Code of Canon Law, a diocese is a local church that gathers a portion of God’s people under a bishop’s pastoral care and authority. Each bishop is assisted by his priests and other entities that cooperate with the bishop in his pastoral function. Among these entities, there is diocesan Caritas. In Italy there are currently 224 dioceses, 45 of which have hosted beneficiaries of the Humanitarian Corridors project since 2017.

European legislation governing the procedure for foreign citizens to request international protection. The version of the regulation that has been in force since 2014 is called Dublin III; it establishes the criteria and mechanisms for determining the member state responsible for examining an application for international protection. The basic principle is that the “competent country” is the applicant's first European country of arrival. If this state has the obligation to evaluate the request for international protection using a specific procedure, the asylum seeker cannot travel to other European countries or submit another asylum application in another European country. Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland have also joined onto the provisions of this legislation even though they are not members of the European Union.

Applicants for international protection who are referred back to the state in which they first applied for international protection following their submission of a request to obtain the same recognition in another European state. Identification of these applicants takes place through the European fingerprint database EURODAC (Reg. 2725/2000), in which asylum seekers' fingerprints are collected and stored, making it possible to verify whether a person has already applied for international protection in another member state of the EU and, if necessary, to repatriate the person to that country. Humanitarian Corridors beneficiaries are subject to this procedure if they leave Italy before receiving international protection and the related final residence permit.