The mayor of Italy’s Rimini municipality, Jamil Sadegholvaad, has proposed granting citizenship to children of third-country nationals who have completed at least one school cycle in Italy.
Sadegholvaad, who’s half Italian half Persian, has urged the central government to grant citizenship to the 1.3 million students, three in four of which are born in Italy, SchengenVisaInfo reports.
Speaking of his own personal experience the mayor has insisted that the best way to integrate the children of non-EU citizens in Italy, is by giving them the chance to become Italian citizens through the completion of at least one school cycle in the country.
In my opinion, the country must also do this [integration] through the Ius Scholae, recognizing Italian citizenship to children of non-EU parents who have attended at least one school cycle in Italy. This would mean giving priority to schools as they deserve in shaping citizenship and truly betting on the future of our communities, which are supportive and integrated.
There are currently 3,500 minors born to foreign parents in Rimini who do not have Italian citizenship.
Right to Citizenship Remains Exclusive to Children With at Least One Italian Parent
The Ius Scholae, which is a reform text on citizenship in Italy, has been debated for years in the country, and was brought to the parliament in 2022. Yet the same did not mark any progress.
The law foresees granting citizenship to children with a migratory background born in Italy or arriving before the age of 12. The same must be legal residents, who have regularly attended at least five years of study in Italy.
Currently, Italy grants to children citizenship only by the right of birth – ius sanguinis – according to which those born to at least one Italian parent have automatic rights to citizenship. Whereas those who were born to non-Italian parent can become citizens only later in life, through the process of naturalisation.
Throughout the years, many organisations and public figures have called on Italian politicians to recognise the status of these children as citizens of Italy.
Not recognising Italian citizenship to these children, girls and young people risks limiting their sense of belonging to the territory, to the community, and limiting their desire to participate in the social life of the neighborhoods.
The mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, on the other hand, had started granting honorary citizenships to children who were born there to foreigners, in spring of 2023. He had been harshly criticised by the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, to whom Lepore had told that these children “are the future and they feel Italian,” inviting him to come and speak with them.
Over 1 Million Non-Italian Minors Living in Italy in 2022
Data by Openpolis, an Italian independent nonprofit that promotes free access to data and information, shows that in 2022, there were over one million minors with non-Italian citizenship living in Italy, accounting for 11.4 per cent of the underage population of the country.
The highest share of this group was detected in the region of Emilia-Romagna (17.4 per cent), while another 16.8 per cent were living in Lombardy at the time, and 15.1 per cent in Tuscany. In total 15 per cent of non-EU minors in Italy were living in these three regions.
According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, in 2021 there were 5,171,894 foreign citizens living in Italy, accounting for around 8.7 per cent of the total population of the country. The number of those with an immigrant background, on the other hand, was higher than six million.
