Italy, We Need to Talk

No offense, but your citizenship laws are a mess

Some of the Italians in my blood. Photos mine.

N.B.: On Friday, March 28, 2025, Italy announced some immediate and proposed changes to citizenship law that would severely limit the number of people eligible for citizenship by descent. The law and proposals are complex and certain areas lack clarity at this point. The following letter addresses only some of the key issues.

Dear Italy,

I love you, you know I do. And I want to make it clear from the get-go that I respect your right to make rules and regulations about citizenship recognition or acquisition (two different things, mind you¹) as you see fit. I respect your right to change them too. I’ve got no problem with any of that, honest. What makes me a smidge crazy, though, is hearing about you sneaking around and using surprise tactics to implement a decree-law that modifies eligibility rules pertaining to jure sanguinis (aka ius sanguinis)² while violating Article 22 of your own Constitution. Not to mention that a Constitutional Court hearing addressing generational limits is already scheduled for June of this year, which leads me to question your motives.

Wait—violating your own Constitution? Have you done that? Yes, you have, according to several Italian citizenship law attorneys. Not only that, but several members of Lega³, one of the parties in the governing coalition, have criticized Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani for “prioritizing stricter rules for descendants of Italian emigrants while promoting more lenient paths like ius scholae⁴ for granting citizenship to foreign minors.”⁵ Criticism has come from the oppostion too; Luciano Vecchi of the Partito Democratico accuses the Meloni government of “lash[ing] out against Italians abroad and Italian descendants, treating them like criminals.”

The purported goal of this new and proposed legislation is, according to a press release put out by the Council of Ministers, “to crack down on abuses and ‘passport tourism’ (people applying for Italian citizenship for convenience, benefits, or fraud). The goal is to ensure only those with a real, ongoing connection to Italy can become or remain Italian citizens.” ⁠ ⁠⁠

The thing is, that’s not how jure sanguinis works. You’re either born Italian because of your Italian ancestry or you’re not. So what you’re proposing, Italy, is jure sanguinis with add-ons. You’re saying that okay, you qualify, but now we’re gonna make that qualification selective by requiring things that favor those with the money and means to achieve them.

The decree-law (decreto legge)

Here is the most pertinent part of the decree-law, which will stand unless Parliament rejects or changes it within 60 days (thank you for the text, Reddit!).

Article 1

Urgent Provisions Regarding Citizenship

[Blah blah blah legal citations] it is considered that someone who was born abroad, even before the date of enactment of this article, and who holds another nationality, has never acquired Italian citizenship, unless one of the following conditions applies:

a) The person's citizenship status is recognized, in accordance with the applicable law as of March 27, 2025, following a request, accompanied by the necessary documentation, submitted to the competent consular office or mayor no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;

b) The person's citizenship status is judicially verified, in accordance with the applicable law as of March 27, 2025, following a judicial request submitted no later than 23:59, Rome time, on the same date;

c) A parent or adoptive parent who is a citizen was born in Italy;

d) A parent or adoptive parent who is a citizen has been a resident in Italy for at least two continuous years before the child's birth or adoption;

e) A first-degree ascendant of the parents or adoptive parents who is a citizen was born in Italy.”

In normal-speak, this means that to qualify, petitioners who were born abroad must have an unbroken line (meaning their Italian ancestor/s didn’t naturalize before their children were born) from an Italian parent who was born in Italy (or who lived in Italy for two years prior to the child’s birth) or from a grandparent born in Italy. In other words, a generational limit. Okay, but there’s a problem.

What’s the problem?

As I mentioned above, the new decree-law is retroactive, which in effect strips citizenship from millions of Italian citizens who haven’t yet been recognized, as well as discriminatory. According to attorney Marco Mellone, the decree-law “is clearly against many principles of Italian Law, of Italian Constitution, of European Union Law and of European Convention for Human Rights and it is likely to have a short and irrelevant life. [… T]he new rules have no attitude to apply for already-born citizens. In other words, they cannot be retroactive. As a matter of fact, a descendant is an Italian citizen from the birth regardless his or her place of birth. […] To conclude, no laws may rewrite 160 years of history of Italy and of Italian citizenship law and violate basic principles of the Italian rule of law.”

For a more detailed breakdown of the legality issues, here’s attorney Giovanni Di Ruggiero:

The reform introduces a retroactive revocation of citizenship for those who acquired it at birth via ius sanguinis but did not file an administrative or judicial application by March 27, 2025, nor can demonstrate a generational link to an ancestor born in Italy within two generations.

If confirmed in its current form, the decree-law would be manifestly unconstitutional for the following reasons:

𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 (𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝟑, 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧)

The reform discriminates among citizens of Italian origin based on place of birth or residence, imposing additional requirements (the “generational filter”) on those born abroad. Moreover, it ties the retroactive revocation of citizenship to an arbitrary criterion: submitting an application by a specific deadline. This creates unequal treatment between individuals in identical circumstances (birth to an Italian parent), applying opposing rules based on a deadline unrelated to the acquired right.

𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐲

Retroactively revoking already acquired citizenship contradicts settled jurisprudence from the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court, which have always recognized citizenship by descent under laws in force at the time of birth.

As reaffirmed by the Constitutional Court (e.g., rulings No. 78/2012 and No. 170/2013), retroactive laws must:

• Be justified by protecting constitutional principles;

• Respect reasonableness and proportionality;

• Not undermine citizens’ legitimate expectations.

Here, the retroactive amendment is unforeseeable, disproportionate, and violates consolidated rights.

𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝟐𝟐 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩)

The Constitution prohibits citizenship revocation for political reasons. However, the reform amounts to a retroactive deprivation of ius sanguinis citizenship rights, recognized for over 150 years. The government’s justifications (alleged “national security needs”) appear pretextual and politically motivated.

𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞 (𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝟕𝟕, 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧)

The “urgency” cited in the decree overlaps with grounds already deemed unfounded by courts in Bologna, Milan, and Florence in recent constitutional challenges. If the Constitutional Court, in its June 24, 2025 hearing, confirms the invalidity of these arguments, the urgency justification would collapse, rendering the decree further illegitimate.

The proposed changes to the law

These include residency and language requirements, along with others intended to facilitate that “genuine connection,” such as voting, keeping ID cards current, renewing passports, and possibly paying taxes. The thing is, Italy, a child who meets the criteria for jure sanguinis can’t not be Italian until she’s old enough to take a language test, then magically, upon passing the certification test, become Italian.

But, for argument’s sake, let’s say that it’s perfectly fine to tack on some requirements. Let’s say you want residency to be a requirement. Well then, in that case you have to make such residency possible. And in what’s been practiced and proposed so far, you have not.

For example, the decree-law says that minor children of Italian citizens born outside of Italy will not be recognized unless their parents have lived in Italy for two years prior to the children’s birth. This is discriminatory. How many people have the financial and job flexibility to just pack up and move to Italy so that their children can become Italians? “Hey boss, mind if I telecommute to my factory job?” “Yoo hoo, HR manager, I’m a public defender (or a hospital staff doctor or a federal employee or a project manager or an IT guy or a high school teacher), but can I just take off for two years and then come back to my job, and do it without sabotaging my career? No?”

Now, let’s talk about naturalization. Italy, you say descendants of Italian citizens who don’t qualify for jure sanguinis can naturalize after only three years of residency (dare I point out that this is currently true?). The problem, you see, is how they can come here and stay here legally. Leaving the issue of cost aside (though why should we? moving abroad ain’t cheap), people need a visa to do this, and visa options are limited. Work visas are legendarily difficult to get; the elective residency visa, designed for retirees, has financial requirements and a no-work-permitted-of-any-kind policy that excludes folks who are launching careers or are in their prime; the digital nomad visa is limited in both number (as all visas are, actually) and duration; and student visas, once open to anyone at any level of Italian-language study, are now limited to those at the intermediate level or higher.

So tell me, how does a 20- or 30-something who would like to live in Italy, to make a career here and raise a family, to contribute to society and embrace their Italian heritage fully like you want them to do, emigrate to Italy legally and work legally? There has been some vague talk floating around about an “ancestor visa,” but unless it allows people to work it would be of little use.

Why is this happening?

Tajani is being pretty judge-y about people’s motives for wanting an Italian passport; for example, to facilitate long-term Italian and European tourism, to be able to live and work in Europe outside of Italy, and “go shopping in Miami.”⁶ You can bitch all you want, Italy, but the fact is you opened the door to Italian citizenship recognition and now you’ve got to deal with who comes in.

That’s not to say that some changes aren’t warranted. The new law and proposed changes have plenty of support among Italians (I’ve been reading their responses to the news), and it’s easy to understand why. Let’s take a look at the real and perceived problems the existing citizenship laws create.

1. As I wrote in a previous post about a citizenship law change that happened last fall, the number of people of Italian descent stands at 80 million worldwide. In contrast, Italy’s population is 60 million. The Council of Ministers press release cites a 40 percent increase in citizenship recognitions among Italians living abroad (mostly in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela) in 10 years, from 4.6 million in 2014 to 6.4 million in 2024. So one argument for limiting who qualifies for jure sanguinis is that if vast numbers of those 80 million did become recognized citizens but did not move to Italy, they could potentially out-vote the Italians who live in Italy, most of whom have lived there since birth and have a seriously vested interest in their government and its effect on society.

So let’s look at voting records. The percentage of Italians who voted in 2022⁷ was a paltry 58.3 for the voting age population and 60 for registered voters. By contrast, recent registered voter turnout data puts Brazil (with 32 million people of Italian descent) at 79.4 percent, Argentina (with 25 million) at 82.3 percent, and the U.S. (with 18 million) at 60 percent. So I can kiiiiind of understand the concern. But realistically, how many people are going to make the effort to vote in a country they don’t live in, probably never have lived in, and probably never will live in?

2. The consulates and courts are overwhelmed. Again, Italy, you opened the door but then made it extremely difficult if not impossible to walk through it. The reason there were 19,000 “against the queue” court cases in Veneto as of September 2024, filed mostly by Brazilians, is because there’s a 10-year wait for a consulate appointment in Brazil. Poor Veneto—that’s half the total number of citizenship cases brought before the courts in all of Italy.

And there are other reasons for clogged consulates and courts. You see, Italy, you denied Italian women the right to pass down citizenship to their children, a blatantly misogynistic practice overturned in 1948 that did not grandfather in⁸ anyone born before then. The result has been tens of thousands of court cases accusing the Italian state of discriminatory practice. Then in 2018-ish, some Italian courts (talkin’ about you, Rome) started denying recognition to descendants of women who were minor children at the time of their mother’s naturalization (called the “minor issue”). Hey, look at that, more misogyny!

Un/fortunately, as of October 2024, a ruling by the Corte di Cassazione (Supreme Court) made the practice less misogynistic and more widespread, meaning it applies to descendants of male ancestors too. It’s far from fair though, since while consulates and the Rome courts uphold the Cassazione ruling, many regional courts in Italy do not, which makes citizenship recognition a sort of geographical roulette. Your minor issue case must be heard in Rome? Sorry, no citizenship for you, no matter how many Italian grandparents or parents you have. But in lots of regional courts, particularly those in the south, no problem, congrats, you’re Italian!

4. Which brings us to another argument: people who want to claim Italian citizenship through a lone distant ancestor who set off for the diaspora long ago and now has a shit-ton of descendants who may have no current familial or cultural ties to Italy. Someone somewhere (if I can figure out where, I’ll add the link) was outraged that 58 descendants of one Italian who emigrated to Brazil now want citizenship.

But Italy, you decided way back when to implement a jure sanguinis policy with no generational limits, so what did you expect? That people will say, nah, I don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity to have a powerful passport that allows me to live and work in Europe and [in the case of people in a particular country I won’t name] not go bankrupt because I got sick?

I get why you’re cranky about these people who seem marginally attached to Italy, especially when, as lots of young Italians point out, their friends who are children of immigrants and have grown up in Italy, who speak the language and are culturally Italian, can’t gain citizenship until they’re 18. So fine, change your mind. Create generational limits that will apply going forward, to anyone born after such-and-such a date, not to those WHO WERE BORN ITALIAN ACCORDING TO THE LAWS IN PLACE AT THE TIME OF THEIR BIRTH. Otherwise you are, as already mentioned, stripping citizenship from Italians, which is a violation of the Italian Constitution.

Is some reform needed or desirable?

The Italian state is overloaded with consulate applications and judicial cases; town and city administrations complain that massive workloads pertaining to citizenship applications and processing mean they have no time to deal with their current citizens’ needs. Meanwhile, unrecognized Italian citizens in the diaspora are experiencing exceptionally long delays, the inability to schedule a consulate appointment, unexplained postponements, eleventh-hour judge and hearing-date switcheroos, inconsistent practices and rulings (which create confusion and more and more court cases), and soaring costs. So, yeah, it’s reasonable to say some changes are needed. The theoretical planned move to a centralized administrative process for recognition might make sense, for example, if it’s implemented well. But who knows how long that will take? The proposal states that consulates will continue to process applications through 2025, yet the portals for that process were removed from consulate websites immediately, depriving people abroad of any way to apply for jure sanguinis recognition.

You see, Italy, I think we’d all be happy with a clear-cut administrative process that doesn’t require months of playing Whack-a-Mole with the Prenot@Mi system⁹, eliminates the various and often changeable opinions of judges, and doesn’t pull the rug out from under us. “You qualify!” “Oops, now you don’t, but that guy over there, with the exact same situation, yep, he qualifies.” “Yeah, we’ve done it that way since 2009, but now [shrug] nah.” I mean, I look at my friend’s experience gaining Irish citizenship¹⁰ through her grandfather—straightforward and done in a matter of months—and I think “if only.”

We of Italian descent can only dream of such ease.

And that makes the actions Tajani and the Meloni government took last Friday seem mean-spirited. Do they really think unrecognized Italians involved in this often years-long, expensive process are doing it for kicks? Tajani said in the press conference that “being an Italian citizen must be a serious matter.” Believe me, sir, those of us who have spent hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars or euros on documents and translations and apostilles, on filings in consulates and courts, on lawyers and genealogists, on visas and travel and permits (and in many cases, with this new legislation, have seen that money go down the drain), those of us who have spent hundreds of hours doing research, organizing, communicating, stressing and not sleeping, waiting for the next unexpected change and wondering which end of the fairness spectrum we’ll end up on—we take it very, very seriously.

Tante belle cose,

Cheryl

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Italian expressions of the day

• Che casino! (What a mess!)

• Ma stai scherzando? (Are you kidding me?)

• Mi hai rotto le scatole! (You have seriously annoyed/bothered me.)

What I’m reading

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

• All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley

P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!

1. People who are eligible to claim Italian citizenship by descent are Italian from birth; the jure sanguinis process is the legal recognition of that status. (In comparison, the U.S. is a jus soli country, meaning that anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ nationality/ies, is a U.S. citizen.) People of Italian heritage who are not eligible and those who have no Italian ancestry but are resident in Italy for the required number of years can acquire Italian citizenship through naturalization. So, jure sanguinis = recognition, naturalization = acquisition. (Of course, naturalization isn’t specific to Italy.)

2. Jure sanguinis is based on the principle that descendants of Italian ancestors (who must have been born in Italy after March 17, 1861, when the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, or after their place of birth had been annexed to the Kingdom of Italy), are Italian citizens regardless of their place of birth (always assuming the line is unbroken).

3. Dmitri Coin of Veneto and Graziano Pizzimenti of Fruili-Venezia Giulia

4. A proposed policy that would grant citizenship to foreign minors who complete schooling in Italy.

5. This is according to a post on Studio Legale Di Ruggiero’s Facebook page. In the arguments I’ve seen pro and con, it’s quite clear that racism underlies some of the politicians’ remarks, which would suggest that the law and proposals are politically motivated.

6. Quick aside here to say that snarkiness is never a good idea when you’re operating in an official capacity. To accuse anyone of wanting Italian citizenship simply to avoid having to get a visa to enter the U.S. in order to “go shopping in Miami,” as Tajani said, is disrespectful to say the least. To accuse the entire continent of South America of doing this smacks of xenophobia.

7. See chart of breakdown by nation here.

8. Grandmother in? Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

9. The method by which appointments at made at Italian consulates for recognition and passports.

10. Ireland does impose a generational limit.