There are more than one million foreign minors in Italy, representing 11.5% of the country’s resident population under the age of 18. There are more than 870,000 students of foreign origin in the Italian school, two thirds of them born in the territory. They study in Italy, they go to the doctor in Italy, they play with Italians. But they do not enjoy the same rights as their peers.
Italy has revived an old debate these days: how to resolve the crossroads of the million children of migrants who do not have citizenship. Parliament is debating a bill to introduce the ius scholae, that is, the right to nationality for minors – both those who were born in the country and those who arrived before the age of 12 – after completing a cycle of five years of schooling. This is the latest of the ideas that has reached the Chamber of Deputies after other proposals that have been discussed for years but could not prosper due to the strong opposition of the right.
A thirty-year-old law based on jus sanguinis is still in force. You can have the right to citizenship who proves to have Italian blood, and not who resides or is born in the country. Those born in Italy of non-Italian parents can apply for nationality if they have lived continuously on the peninsula until they reach the age of majority. They can only start processing the papers to obtain it once they are 18 years old. In the event that they were not born in Italy, they must follow the same procedure as their parents. That is, having resided legally for at least ten years –and meeting certain requirements–, or marrying an Italian. There are some exceptions, such as those of Ramy Shehata and Adam el Hamami, who at the age of 13 and 12 were able to hide their phone and report the hijacking of the bus in which they were traveling with their companions and the intention of its driver to set it on fire. They were granted nationality for their civil merits.
For Giuseppe Brescia, the deputy of the 5 Star Movement (M5E) that has promoted the ius scholae, this is an “absurd paradox”. “It is possible that there are people on the other side of the world who have never set foot in Italy and discover a distant kinship who have more rights over the children who go to school with our children,” he explains to this newspaper. “Society has changed a lot since 1992,” he insists. At that time, the aim was to maintain links with Italian emigrants, and now Italy is a country with many immigrants whose children cannot, for example, access public competitions or vote”.
But, as happened before, the issue has sparked a political war. In particular, between the M5E and the Democratic Party (PD), which support the proposal, and far-right parties such as the League or the Brothers of Italy, opposed to making concessions to migrants. “It’s crazy because it would give nationality to all gang criminals, while for foreign children who go to school their rights are already guaranteed,” criticized the leader of the League, Matteo Salvini. His party has reacted by submitting 1,500 amendments to the bill to block its passage.
In 2015 the left already tried to launch the ius soli (right of land) to give citizenship to those born in Italy of immigrant parents who had a residence permit. Nor did another later proposal triumph, the ius culturae (right of culture), a norm very similar to the scholae that did not include children who were not born in Italy. “It is a very balanced law that recognizes a path for integration and the work of teachers to create community,” defends Brescia.
