ROMA – The statistical dossier on immigration, edited by theIDOS. Let’s see some previews.
Acquisitions of citizenship in Italy. In 2022 and 2023, citizenship acquisitions in Italy exceeded the ceiling of 200 thousand (213,716 in 2022 and 213,567 in 2023, in comparison, in 2016 they were 201,591). These are peaks, explains the Idos Reportwhich “must not be misleading: they are the result of the maturation of ten years of continuous residence necessary for ordinary naturalisation, with the addition of a few more years for the definition of the procedures (up to 4 according to the time extension introduced by the “Salvini Decree” of 2018), by a high number of foreigners, largely fueled by those regularized in the amnesties which took place between 10 and 14 years previously”. These are therefore people who became Italian after a period of regular residence even exceeding ten years. In particular, in the case of the last two years the peak of acquisitions can largely be referred to the amnesties of 2009 and 2012 (which regularized 238,000 and 99,000 immigrants respectively), while that of 2016 to the amnesties of 2002 (the largest achieved so far , with 650 thousand emergences).
Ordinary naturalizations and by marriage. In 2022, in continuity with the previous decade, in over three out of four cases it involved ordinary naturalizations (45.1%) or transmission to minor children by parents who were themselves naturalized (31.4%), concerning especially non-EU communities with longer stays in Italy (Albanians and Moroccans). Instead, acquisitions by marriage (8.8%), by election upon reaching the age of 18 and by juridical descent (14.7% overall) remain, significantly, much smaller. These data confirm the need for a reform that extends the channels of access to citizenship at least for minors who were born in Italy or arrived there at a young age.
Minors who became Italian. In the last five years, around 215 thousand minors have become Italian, on average 43 thousand per year, compared to 1.3 million of their peers with a migratory background estimated by Istat, the majority of whom are still foreigners. The Report highlights how out of 914,860 pupils of foreign citizenship enrolled in Italian schools, 598,754 were born in Italy, or two out of three, and how “in 2023, half a century after Italy became a country of immigration, Italians by acquisition (1.9 million, 85% of non-EU origin) are only 3.2% of all residents in Italy, compared to a foreign population (5.3 million residents) which affects almost 3 times more.”
Public housing. Il Idos Report underlines the requirement of multi-year uninterrupted residence (usually 5 years) introduced by many Regions to compete for the assignment of public housing (punctually rejected by the Constitutional Court and promptly reintroduced by other Regions – recently in Piedmont and Veneto – even subtly, assigning high scores to long residences). And also “the continuous residence of 10 years adopted as an impediment criterion for the old Citizenship Income (which, in addition to inhibiting the submission of many applications, has largely contributed to the approximately 120 thousand total revocations of the measure, of which less than 29% have benefited of poor foreign families compared to 67% of Italian ones”).
Exemption from social security contributions. Another issue highlighted in the Report is the limitation of the total exemption from social security contributions (disability, old age and survivors) only to female workers with three or more children (2 for 2024) employed on a permanent basis and to the exclusion of those employed in the domestic sector (L. 213/2023), which implements indirect discrimination against foreigners (notoriously the majority of domestic workers have, on average, more fixed-term contracts than Italians: 36.0% against 26.8%).
The professional registers. Il Idos Report signals the exclusion of non-EU citizens both from the possibility of enrolling in the newly established professional registers of pedagogists and educators (Law 55/2024), unless under conditions of reciprocity with the country of citizenship (i.e. only if in it the Italian citizens can carry out the same professions), and from the “license bonus” of 2,500 euros, expected until 2026 to encourage the acquisition of a goods and people haulier’s license and thus address the shortage of manpower in the sector (although the Court of Turin ordered non-EU citizens to be readmitted to the measure, the first two years of application passed without including them). “Added to this are the chronic delays of public administrations in the procedures for issuing clearances, visas, authorisations, residence permits, responses to asylum applications (even up to two years), as well as in summoning the Prefecture for the signature of “residence contracts” (8 months or more, against the 8 days prescribed by law) or in municipal offices for completing registry registrations: all dysfunctions which, by freezing the exercise of the relevant rights for a very long period, often compromise, and sometimes definitively, entry into Italy, employment, regularity of stay, assistance from a general practitioner, use of municipal services, recognition of bonuses and allowances for poor families, etc.”.
An oppressive system. “It is a vexatious system – states Luca Di Sciullo, president of IDOS – which makes foreign citizens structurally subordinate to Italian citizens, both in terms of fundamental rights and, consequently, effective participation in the life of the country. And this subjection is implemented both in principle, by regulating seriously discriminatory mechanisms at all administrative levels, and in practice, by imposing – even against the provisions of the law – such long processing times for procedures as to jeopardize, often irremediably, their status. legal system and their already precarious living conditions”.
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