Immigration in Italy: a plague?

In Italy, immigration is considered an issue of great interest nowadays and a problem everybody has to cope with in his/her everyday life. People say that is a relatively recent phenomenon in our country. As a matter of fact, until the 1970s Italy was primarily an emigration country that people left to find new jobs and a better life in the Northern European countries or in America. The situation rapidly changed after 1970s when most immigrants from the African and Eastern countries realized that Italy was not only a crossroad to reach other countries and chose Italy as their final destination. Since then, large flows of immigrants and foreigners has come to Italy every year. In my opinion, immigration is absolutely a good thing: it is the product of our current cosmopolitan world where people are free to move and choose the country they want to live in. As Mark Krikorian – executive director of the centre for immigration Studies in Washington – affirmed: “People are not goods” (Illegal immigration and underground economy, 2003), so a strong movement of people means also an exchange and sometimes a clash of cultures, traditions and backgrounds and it is the starting point of a radical change in our traditional society and of integration as well.

Generally speaking, immigration in Italy is regarded as a powerful and essential resource for our country. A massive flow of people supplies the demand of labour force, especially in the low level, poorly paid jobs, and allows Italy to lay off older workers that will be replaced by younger, ingenious and cheaper workers. In addition, immigration to Italy is a solution to cope with the decline of birth rates and to correct the ageing population that is getting higher and higher in our country. (If you want to read an interesting article about birth rates in Europe, go to Italy: immigration or extinction).

Talking about immigration, the greatest plague of Italy is illegal immigration, which is people entering and remaining in Italy without a valid stay permit. It is estimated that for every legal entry in our country, there is an illegal one (Immigration in Italy: an overview, 2003). Almost completely surrounded by the sea, Italy is one of the most exposed country to penetration by illegal immigrant from the South and the East and although controls and on land and sea frontiers were intensified, the extension of he Italian coastline makes it quite impossible to operate a strict control on landings. Then, even though the police manage to arrest illegal immigrants, the proper readmission procedure, established by the “Bossi-Fini Law” of July 2002, is not always followed and immigrants, not repatriated to their countries, slip away and disappear as unrecognized residents.

In Italy, most of the times illegal immigrants are involved in underground economy and criminality. I think that the reason of this is quite easy. Illegal immigrants who come to Italy escape from the terrible situation of their home countries: referring to people from the Northern African countries or the Balkans, they leave places that are breeding grounds of poverty, famine and especially centres of war and never-ending civil unrest. When they arrive in Italy, they need to make money as soon as possible and they choose the fastest way to do it. We all agree that finding a regular job as a recognized workers implies a slow procedure. Now, two paths are open for the majority of them. The first one is underground economy, a huge economic sector, firmly rooted and well-flourishing in Italy so that immigrants are offered a wide range of jobs without being demanded any document. The spread of underground economy has severely damaged the economy of our country. The second solution for immigrants is criminality. A great problem for Italy today is that a large part of illegal immigrants are involved in crime such as organized criminal rings, prostitution, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, sexual commerce, smuggling or child labour and exploitation. Obviously, crimes has a deep impact on Italian people’s sensibility and phenomena like segregation, racism and xenophobia have increased a lot during the last decades. Crime has stigmatized the image of immigrants in Italy staining the image of legal immigrants in the country as well.

In the broader debate concerning with migration from the Third World to the developed countries nowadays, the recurring question is whether borders should be open and legal channels should be created to promote migration or, on the other hand, the entries of migrants should be strictly reduced. In my opinion, one of the major problems in Italy nowadays is illegal immigration, not immigration as a whole. Both Italian citizens and politics are aware of it and although Italian government established measures to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, the problem has not been solved yet and there is still a long way to go. The only solution to fight illegal immigration is to create a proper migration policy in order to check and to regulate the flow of people with legal channel.

It is true that migration is a well-known phenomenon completely integrated in Italian society but the problem is that, if migration as contemporary process is actually accepted, immigrants are still not entirely integrated in our society…

FOR FURTHER READING:

1. Newell, Casey. Illegal immigration in Italy; retrieved on April 12^th, 2008 from http://www-pub.naz.edu:9000/~cmnewell/;
2. Caritas, (2002). Immigration to Italy: an overview;
3. Marchetto, Agostino (2004) Contemporary immigration to Italy; retrieved on April 12^th, 2008 from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/migrants/pom2004_94/rc_pc_migrants_pom94_Marchetto_immigration.html;
4. BBC News, Italy: immigration or extinction; retrieved on April 12^th, 2008 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/719423.stm;
5. Reyneri, Emilio (2003) Illegal immigration and underground economy; retrieved on April 12^th, 2008 from http://www.anu.edu.au/NEC/Archive/reyneri.pdf;