Just weeks after forming a government with the Five Star Movement, the establishment left Democratic Party (PD) is pushing for so-called “birthright citizenship”.
PD deputy Matteo Orfini said that a law on birthright citizenship, or jus soli, must be passed with “urgency” following a vote on cutting the number of seats in the Italian parliament in October, Il Giornale reports.
Elena Bonetti, the new family minister, also expressed a desire to look at citizenship reform, saying that she thought it was a mistake not to approve a law on jus culturae— a law that would allow foreign minors under the age of 12 to acquire citizenship after five years of education.
Senator Roberto Calderoli, a member of Matteo Salvini’s League and vice president of the Italian Senate, slammed the proposal to give anyone born on Italian soil full citizenship, saying: “Attention! We have blocked this in the last legislature and we will block it even now.
“Those in the Democratic Party put this well your heads: the jus soli is dead and buried, we buried it in the last legislature and no one will raise it up, not even this zombie government. The current law on citizenship is fine as it is and as demonstrated by the numbers of new citizens we have granted to many in these last few years,” Senator Calderoli added.
The proposal for birthright citizenship comes as the new leftist Italian government has made moves to reopen Italy’s ports to migrant transport NGOs with 182 migrants landing earlier this week when the Doctors Without Borders vessel the Ocean Viking landed in Messina.
A birthright citizenship law would open up the possibility for illegal migrants to have children in Italy who would then become Italian citizens automatically, a phenomenon known as “anchor babies” in the United States.
Italian think tank the FareFuturo foundation released a projection earlier this month claiming that mass migration, combined with other factors driving demographic changes, including birthrates, could lead to Italy becoming half-Muslim by 2100.
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