Arbër Agalliu and Italians without citizenship

The Italian-Albanian activist Arbër Agalliu has been advocating for more than a decade for a reform of the obsolete Italian citizenship law, which not only makes life impossible for aspiring Italian citizens, but also makes many young people feel like foreigners in their own country. Our interview

In Italy, the acquisition of citizenship is still governed by legislation more than 30 years old. This is Legge 91 of 1992 , based on the system of ius sanguinis, or the inheritance of citizenship based on that of the parents. Those born in Italy to foreign parents have the option of applying to acquire citizenship within one year after turning 18, provided they have resided legally for their entire lives in Italian territory. Immigrants from non-EU countries, on the other hand, can apply only after having spent at least 10 years legally on Italian territory.

Over the past 30 years, more than 120 bills have been proposed in an attempt to reform the law, which is now considered obsolete by activists and migration experts, as it dates back to a historical period when Italy's demographic and migration situation was very different from what it is today. The only substantive attempt was brought forward in 2015 by the Renzi government, but it ran aground in the Senate due to sabotage by part of the same center-left majority that brought it forward. This provoked the frustration of activists and the many Italians of foreign origin who hoped for a simplification of the process for acquiring citizenship, which today, with the right-wing Meloni government, seems far away.

Arbër Agalliu, an Italian-Albanian journalist and activist who has been engaged in the battle to reform the citizenship law for more than 10 years, and is the co-founder of the "Italians Without Citizenship " movement, is also of this opinion. Agalliu told us about his experience and the struggles of those who, like him, face or have faced the naturalization process.

Let's begin with your origins: when did you leave Albania and what was your personal experience related to the naturalization process?

I arrived in Italy with my family in 1998, at the age of 10. We left Albania after the financial crash that followed the huge Ponzi scheme which left millions of Albanians in poverty in the late 1990s and caused anarchy in the country. We came to Italy at a critical time, in which discrimination against Albanians was stark, due to a crime news narrative in which we were always singled out as the worst criminals. At school it was more offensive to call people "Albanian" than "asshole". Moreover, during school hours my parents would take me to the police station to leave fingerprints, as if I were a criminal. Experiencing this illegal status even as a child, at a stage of life when you shouldn’t worry about such things at all, leaves a mark on you.

Today we are fighting so that other children born or raised in Italy do not have to go through this kind of experience. This goes, above all, through a reform of the citizenship law, first and foremost with regard to minors of foreign origin who are educated in Italy and project their lives here. Unfortunately, however, I am pessimistic. Despite years of battle and investments, collective and personal, for a more inclusive Italy, I do not see a reform coming in the near future.

Are you now an Italian citizen? What have been the most difficult obstacles during the naturalization process?

I obtained Italian citizenship in 2016, 18 years after arriving in Italy. Besides the very long 10-year wait, the most difficult obstacle in the naturalization process is on the economic side. Educational and cultural background is not taken into consideration, only the economic value of a person is. One deserves citizenship only if he or she produces wealth, if one has enough annual income to apply, otherwise they make you feel like a foreigner at home.

The right to study is also affected: those who were not born in Italy and are not Italian citizens after the age of 18 find themselves worrying not only about going through university exams, but also about finishing them within set time period, otherwise they risk having to find a job to get their residence permit renewed.

Another issue is time windows: if you were born in Italy but spend too much time outside the country before the age of 18, you risk having your citizenship application rejected. This is the case of Nadia, an acquaintance of mine of Moroccan origin who spent summers in Morocco with her family during her childhood, and was denied citizenship because she spent too much time outside Italy.

Then, for some there is the problem of dual citizenship: China, for example, does not allow its citizens to hold two passports. In this case, if a parent decides not to acquire Italian citizenship in order to keep that of his or her home country, the choice also falls on the child, at least until the age of 18. The law does not take the experience of second generations into account at all.

What would you recommend to a person going through the naturalization process?

Be a pain in their butt! Often people who apply have to wait for a long time, and even if time limits are broken, they don't push or take legal action for fear of possible retaliation or further lengthening of the process. In fact, it is the opposite: the Italian bureaucratic system is a constant shift of responsibility, and only through legal pressure can something be moved. Procedurally, little else that can be done: until a reform comes, we are hostages to an obsolete law.

Was there anything or anyone who helped you in the naturalization process, and why?

If I think about my personal experience, I received Italian citizenship after only 20 months of waiting after formalizing my application, a relatively short period. This probably depended on the government in office at the time. Today the wait can be much longer. Honestly, I can't think of anything else.

What does your fight entail and how do you carry it out?

As second-generation immigrants, we try to assert our being "bridging" figures, creating connections internationally. I promote Albanian culture in Italy, but also Italian culture in Albania, and I fight against discrimination and for inclusion. In all of this, of course, the fight for the reform of the citizenship law also fits in.

Ours is an approach disconnected from political parties. It is different from the activism of the first generations: they too fought against discrimination, but they also had different battles to fight. Today we fight for our rights using the means that they, doing the “dirty jobs” that no one else wanted to do, provided us with: training, knowledge of the language and that of the bureaucratic system and Italian society. We are 100 percent Italian, but this has perhaps penalized us in that we are less "instrumentable" by politics. Paradoxically, the first generations found more consensus and support within parties.

What would you change about the current system?

I find it almost shameful that we still have to talk about Legge 91 of 1992, given that many of those directly affected today were not even born at the time it was enacted. It is a totally obsolete piece of legislation that refers to the Statuto Albertino and should be reformed in its entirety. It is a text that does not consider the existence of second generations, since they basically did not exist at the time. It was conceived on the concept of ius sanguinis, mainly to call back home the descendants of Italian immigrants abroad.

But in addition to the law, the vocabulary also needs to be changed. To still be considered second-generation immigrants seems absurd to me: for many, the only migration process was from the hospital where they were born to their home, in Italy.

This article was produced as part of “MigraVoice: Migrant Voices Matter in the European Media”, an editorial project supported by the European Union. The positions contained in this article are the expression of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the European Union.