The importance of being southern: The making of policies of immigration control in Italy

European Journal of Migration and Law

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 119-138

  Finotelli, Claudia ^a   Sciortino, Giuseppe ^b  

^a University Institute Ortega y Gasset   (Spain)

^b UNIVERSITY OF TRENTO   (Italy)

Author keywords

Immigration Controls; Immigration Policy; Immigration Politics; Irregular Migration; Italy; Regularization Processes

Indexed keywords

EID: 68249142811     PISSN: 1388364X     EISSN: 15718166     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157181609X439998     Document Type: Article

References (61)

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13. The structural signifi cance of the service sector is explained mostly by the household services, where a large number of migrants is employed, both in cleaning and care work (G. Sciortino, Immigration in a mediterranean welfare state: the italian experience in a comparative perspective, 6(2) Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (2004) 111-128:
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18. However, the right of asylum remained based on the Convention of Geneva, while the constitutional right of asylum of Art. 10 III It. Cost. was not converted into a law.
19. Italy had signed the Schengen agreement on 27 November 1990 and ratifi ed it in 1993. However, the agreement became operative only in April 1998.
20. The contingent planned for such a procedure, however, was set at a very limited amount, thus making it mostly symbolic.
21. The fi rst bilateral agreement was signed with Poland (1994), Georgia (1997), Albania (1998) followed by Lithuania (1997), Tunisia (1998) and Sri Lanka (2001). The Italian government also signed readmission agreements with Algeria (1998), Morocco (1998), Nigeria (2000) and Pakistan (2000) as well as Moldova (2002).
22. The access to the national health system was regulated by the administrative memo of the ministry of Health n. 5 of 24 March 2000 based on Art. 35 of the L. 40/1998.
23. A. Colombo and G. Sciortino, The Bossi-Fini Law: explicit fanaticism, implicit moderation and poisoned fruits, Italian Politics (2003) 162-180.
24. C. Finotelli and G. Sciortino, Looking for the European Soft Underbelly: Visa Policies and Amnesties for Irregular Migrants in Germany and Italy, in: S. Baring-Horst, J.F. Hollifi eld and U. Hunger, Herausforderung Migration - Perspektiven der vergliechenden Politikwissenschaft, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006, pp. 249-280.
25. The measure, never actually implemented strictly, would have implied that the foreign workers becoming unemployed during the renovation period, would have little possibilities to renew their residence permits. Thus, the new law would have not only introduced an element of further rigidity in the recruitment of foreign workers, but it would also have greatly increased the chances of becoming irregular for settled workers.
26. However, Italy still lacks an organic asylum law, though since 1997 it is possible to apply for constitutional asylum directly to the court.
27. L. Einaudi, Le politiche dell'immigrazione in Italia dall'unità a oggi, Bari: Laterza, 2007.
28. In recent years, from 2006 on, the numbers of planned legal entries have markedly increased, but a large percentage of them is basically absorbed by the ex-post regularization of workers already present on the territory.
29. P. Monzini, F. Pastore et al., Schengen's soft underbelly Irregular migration and human smuggling across land and sea borders to Italy, 44(4) International Migration (2006) 1-25.
30. L. Coslovi, Brevi note sull'immigrazione via mare in Italia e in Spagna, 2007, available on http://www.cespi.it/PDF/mig-mare.pdf:
31. P. Monzini, Il traffi co di migranti per mare verso l'Italia. Sviluppi recenti, Cespi WP 43, Rome, 2008 at: http://www.cespi.it/WP/WP43-Traffico- Monzini.pdf. For this reason both the Prodi (2006-2008) and the Berlusconi governments (2008-) have intensifi ed their cooperation eff orts with the Libyan government. In August 2008, the Italian government had signed an agreement with the Libyan government aimed, among other things, at increasing mutual cooperation in the struggle against irregular migration.
32. Ministero dell'Interno, Rapporto sulla criminalità in Italia, Rome, 2007 at: http://www.anolf.it/download/rapporto-criminalit%E0- minint-20-06-2007.pdf.
33. G.C. Blangiardo (Ed.), L'immigrazione straniera in Lombardia. La settima indagine regionale, Milano: Osservatorio Regionale per l'integrazione e la multietnicità, 2008.
34. Einaudi, 2007:
35. Ministero dell'Interno, 2007.
36. C. Finotelli and G. Sciortino, Looking for the European Soft Underbelly: Visa Poli-cies and Amnesties for Irregular Migrants in Germany and Italy, in: S. Baring-Horst, J.F. Hollifi eld and U. Hunger, Herausforderung Migration - Perspektiven der vergliechenden Politikwissenschaft, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006, pp. 249-280.
37. Emilio Reyneri, The Role of the Underground Economy in irregular migration to Italy: Cause or Effect, 24(2) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (1998) 131-331.
38. Information provided by the Italians Trade Unions.
39. G. Sciortino, 'Just Before the Fall', The Northern League and the Cultural Construc-tion of a Secessionist Claim, 14 International Sociology (1999) 321-336.
40. The Italian governments carried out two more regularizations in 1977 and 1982 on the basis of two administrative memos of the Italian Ministry of Work.
41. A. Colombo and G. Sciortino, Semir, il questore e la sardina. Rappresentazioni delle sanatorie sulle pagine de 'La Repubblica', in Marzio Barbagli, Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortine (eds.), I sommersi e i sanati. Le regolarizzazioni degli immigrati, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004, pp. 223-261.
42. M. Barbagli, et al.
43. Emilio Reyneri and Maria Baganha, 2001. Migration and the Labour Market in Southern Europe, IMIS-Beiträge, Nr. 17, pp. 33-53.
44. A. Zolberg, Wanted but not Welcome: Alien Labor in Western Development, Population in an Interacting World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 36-73.
45. The Pact of Immigration signed in 2008 by all European Member States forbids carrying further mass regularization processes. If this has made the enactment of new amnesties politically unfeasible, it has not ruled out to obtain the same goal with diff erent means and under diff erent names. In 2006, the Prodi government has greatly enlarged the yearly contingent bringing the total number of entry slots in line with the number of application previously fi led. Such decision was based on the (not unreasonable) assumption that most applications had been actually fi led on behalf of workers already irregularly living within the country.
46. According to the UNHCR Statistics, in 2006 the refugee population in Italy (28,875) was considerably lower than the number of refugees registered in Germany (606,000) or in the United Kingdom (301,000).
47. C. Finotelli, Illegale Einwaderung, Flüchtlingsmigration und das Ende des Nord-Süd-Mythos. Zur funktionalen Äquivalenz des deutschen und des italienischen Einwanderungsregimes, Münster: LIT, 2007.
48. M. Carfagna, I sommersi e i sanati. Le regolarizzazioni degli immigrati in Italia, in A. Colombo and G. Sciortino (Eds.), Stranieri in Italia. Assimilati ed esclusi, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002, pp. 53-91:
49. G.C. Blangiardo (Ed.), L'immigrazione straniera in Lombardia. La settima indagine regionale, Milano: Osservatorio Regionale per l'integrazione e la multietnicità, 2008.
50. For a more extensive analysis on this issue see C. Bonifazi, 2006. Halians and Foreign Immigration, in: I. Söderling (ed.), Finnish Yearbook of Population Research, XLII, 42-112:
51. A. Colombo, 2007. Gli stranieri e noi. Immigrazione e opinione pubblica in Emilia-Romagna. Bologna: Il Mulino.
52. However, the fear of welfare overuse has recently become another important factor in the attitude of Italians towards immigration. (Colombo 2007).
53. M. Barbagli, Immigrazione e reati in Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002.
54. G. Sciortino, 'Just Before the Fall', The Northern League and the Cultural Construction of a Secessionist Claim, International Sociology14 (1999) 321-336.
55. G. Zincone, The Making of Policies: Immigration and Immigrants in Italy, 32 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2006) 347-375.
56. Ibid., Zincone identifi es fi ve possible attitudes of decision-makers toward immigration: solidarist, multiculturalist, functionalist, identitarian and repressive/legalitarian.
57. Ibid.
58. AN is the successor party, established in 1994, of the former Movimento Sociale Italiano, considered to be the heritage of the Italian Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini.
59. Sciortino and Colombo, 2004. 51) T. Perlmutter, The Politics of Restriction: The Eff ect of Xenophobic Parties on Ital-ian Immigration Policy and German Asylum Policy, in Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg and Patrick Hossay, (Eds.), Shadows over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe, London: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 269-298.
60. G. Mottura and P. Pinto, Immigrazione e cambiamento sociale: Strategie sindacali e lavoro straniero in Italia. Roma: Ediesse, 1996.
61. The collapse of the Prodi-government implied that the proposed legislation was never approved by the Houses.