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World
The Dangers of Jus Sanguinis: Outdated and Restrictive Immigration Policy in Italy
Last month, the lower house of the Italian parliament approved a bill that will let children born in Italy to immigrant parents receive citizenship if their parents have been residents in the country for at least five years. If this bill passes in the Italian Senate, it will undo the principle of jus sanguinis (under which citizenship is only granted to those who have Italian ancestors) that has historically prevented children of immigrants from receiving full citizenship.
As the law stands today, children of immigrants, including those born in Italy, are given the permesso di soggiorno–a temporary residency card (the same one that study abroad students and short-term contractors receive) instead of an EU passport. Children cannot even apply for Italian citizenship until they come of age at 18. The application process takes years–waiting in line, submitting the same forms over and over, and living in fear of being arrested for not having the proper documentation. While they wait for their citizenship applications, these members of the “second generation” are not allowed to travel outside of the country. If the child of an immigrant is stopped by the police and they are not carrying the correct documents, they may be deported to their “country of origin”–even if they were born in Italy. Jus sanguinis is creating a generation of disenfranchised, second-class citizens. Filippo Miraglia, vice-president of ARCI, an organization that promotes social integration, explains that:
People born in Italy to foreign parents must now wait until they are 18 years old to request citizenship and they must have lived in Italy throughout their youth, and at least one of the parents must have a long-term permit to stay in Italy, must have a job, must own their home, and have no outstanding legal issues. And even then they can be turned down for subjective reasons based on the person processing the request.
Even in the rare case that these people obtain their documents, they still face widespread discrimination that is rarely addressed in the political sphere. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Italian government has failed to take any effective action against racist and xenophobic violence over the past several years. There are relatively few political champions working to expand immigration rights for the second generation. Both the Northern League and Forza Italia have been adamant that immigration is negatively impacting Italy and have referred to the influx of immigrants over the past several decades as an “invasion.” Silvio Berlusconi made a series of racist comments during his time in power that reveal how little much of the Italian political elite care about creating a racially integrated society.
The new bill that has passed through the House is promising but without sufficient support in the Senate, it will lose momentum and fade into oblivion without making the slightest impact. Organizations like Rete G2 and ARCI advocate for the rights of the second generation, but they have no representatives within Parliament to argue their case. Immigrants make up about 7 percent of the Italian population, yet they are largely excluded from political participation, the only arena in which they can fight for their own citizenship and security.
Before we dismiss Italian immigration policy as draconian and outdated, consider that over two dozen other countries use jus sanguinis (sometimes referred to as leges sanguinis) to determine citizenship. American citizens take for granted that nearly all of us receive birthright citizenship, but in an age where approximately 13 percent of the American population is comprised of immigrants, we too have to pause to assess the path to citizenship. This week, after a federal court overturned President Obama’s efforts to protect five million undocumented immigrants from deportation, the President has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case during its current term. The process of getting a green card and a work permit is arduous and requires patient navigation of a complex bureaucracy, but at least our legislative branch has moved to expedite the process and incorporate more immigrants into the legal citizenry. Our citizenship application, though complex and by no means perfect, is a dream compared to the Italian process.
Donald Trump’s threat to build a wall along the Mexican border earlier this year struck many of us as ridiculous, yet the Italian government has already built just such a wall to protect their borders–they have merely done so using an inefficient bureaucracy and institutionalized racism instead of bricks and mortar.
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