It looks like Italy is still grappling with the whole citizenship-by-descent issue. In a recent post, I discussed Italy’s amended descendent citizenship law, which requires applicants to have a parent or grandparent who was born in Italy. Those with ancestors born in the country in previous generations would no longer be officially considered descendants.
The law took effect earlier this year, dashing the hopes of many people with Italian ancestry to become citizens. (There are currently 60,000 pending citizenship by descent applications, some that have been in process for years.) However, a CNN report says the new law has now been referred to the European Court of Justice to determine if the new law broke European rules. Lawyers continue to argue the case, and some have said that the law may be overturned.
But wait, there’s more.
This time the news is good. One of the many obstacles to descendent citizenship has recently been removed. According to the Associated Press, Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation ruled in late last month that children born with Italian citizenship do not automatically lose it when a parent later becomes a citizen of another country.
Italian diaspora
Over several generations, Italians left to find work in other countries, or for other reasons. The worldwide diaspora often created new, successful lives and subsequently became citizens of their new countries. For the courts, therein lay the problem.
For years it was held that becoming a citizen of another country ended the official bloodline and any claim to Italian citizenship for future generations. As of a couple of weeks ago, that’s all changed.
The AP article states:
The court clarified that children born in countries that automatically grant citizenship at birth — including the United States — retained their Italian citizenship even if their parents later naturalized there. Because they remained Italian citizens, they could pass that citizenship on to subsequent generations.
For descendants of Italian Americans and Italians worldwide, this is huge. And, in this writer’s opinion, this is one of the rare instances where Italy is choosing not to shoot itself in the foot.
If an ancestor had to leave in the interest of survival (or whatever the reason), punishing their descendants by barring descendent citizenship seems ridiculous, and only hurts Italy.
Italians paying the price for inane rules
I’ve harped endlessly in this space about inane rules and regs that have been in place forever, with no one ever questioning why. Do such laws still benefit the country and its citizens? Did they ever? Restricting descendent citizenship based on the excuses stated only negatively affects the country’s economy and Italians are paying the price.
Particularly because of employment and housing challenges in recent years, young people have left the country in droves, pursuing opportunities elsewhere. Again, they’re continuing a generations-old trend. It’s the precise predicament that led to the one-euro home phenomenon, in an effort to repopulate abandoned villages whose only remaining residents are seniors. So, rather than scrambling to come up with such schemes to attract expat revenue, seems it would make more sense to make it easier, not harder, for Italians to become citizens of Italy.
The locals I’ve talked with agree. My neighbor Luigi, an octogenarian, summed it up perfectly. He said, “Un Italiano e un Italiano. Lasciateli tornare a casa!” (An Italian is an Italian. Let them come!)
Hopefully, this high court’s decision is the beginning of a reckoning. Lower courts continue to grapple with nuances, such as that recent ruling that applicants for descendent citizenship must have a parent or grandparent born in Italy. And of course, it may take a very long time for some consulates to get on board with new or amended rulings.
But the Supreme Court of Cassation is not likely to be overturned. They’ve provided a glimmer of hope for many who’ve been barred from applying for descendent citizenship.
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Read more about Italy here in Dispatches’ archives.
Carla Bastos is a former journalist and newspaper editor, and an American expat in Italy for several years. See her personal blog here: https://globalcarlabastos.blogspot.com/
