Italian authorities on Friday transferred 40 migrants with no permission to remain in the country to Italian-run migration detention centres in Albania.

It was the first time a European Union country sent rejected migrants to a nation outside the EU that is neither their own nor a country they had transited on their journey, migration experts said, AP reports.

A military ship with the migrants departed the Italian port of Brindisi and arrived hours later in the Albanian port of Shengjin, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of the capital, Tirana. The migrants were seen being transferred in buses and minivans under heavy security to an Italian-run centre in Shengjin, where they will be processed before being transferred to a second centre in Gjader, also run by Italian authorities.

The Italian government has not released their nationalities or further details.

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Both facilities in Shengjin and in Gjader were originally built to process asylum requests of people intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by Italy. But since their inauguration in October, Italian courts have stopped authorities from using them and small groups of migrants sent there have returned to Italy.

Italy’s far-right-led government of Premier Giorgia Meloni approved a decree last month that expanded the use of the Albanian fast-track asylum processing centers to include the detention of rejected asylum-seekers with deportation orders.

It is not clear how long the migrants may be held in Albania. In Italy they can be detained for up to 18 months pending deportation.

Meloni's novel approach to expel the migrants echoes US President Donald Trump’s recent deportations of migrants of various nationalities to Panama. It's also in line with a recent EU Commission proposal that, if passed, would allow EU members to set up so-called “return hubs” abroad.