Italy: Amnesty for "irregular" immigrants
01 January 1999
The Turco-Napolitano law on Immigration was passed on 27 March 1998 providing for the expulsion of immigrants without the correct documentation. It was followed by a decree of 16 October 1998 offering an amnesty to "irregular" immigrants who entered the country prior to the 27 March, provided that they applied for residence permits in the period running from the 4 November to 15 December 1998. For requests to be considered, they must include an identity document (passport or other identification from the country of origin), job contract, as well as papers from the public administration, communications from service providers (gas or electricity), charity organisation documents or a rent contract to show that they were in the country prior to the 27 March.
It appears that the amnesty will be difficult to implement, particularly because of the quota of 38,000 residence permits (32,000, plus 3,000 for Albanians, 1,500 for Moroccans, and 1,500 for Tunisians) established for 1998. In fact, 188,123 immigrants had already submitted their applications by the 1 December 1998 and no criteria (ie. length of stay, chronological order in which applications were submitted) had been established to prioritise requests.
The prime minister, Massimo D'Alema, has repeatedly stated that the quota system will have to be modified, saying that a greater number of applications will be accepted than was originally intended. The interior minister, Rosa Russo Jervolino, added that all "clandestine" immigrants who fulfil the requirements for obtaining regularisation would receive temporary residence permits, until they could be made fully regular as part of the quotas for 1999 and 2000.
A worrying trend is that immigrants are almost systematically blamed for outbreaks of violence by extremist groups (such as the Lega Nord, see racism and fascism section) and the media, whether they are responsible or not, and that an excessively close relationship is being established between issues of immigration and crime. The regularisation program will not affect people from specific persecuted groups, including refugees fleeing civil war in Kosovo and Kurds who have been arriving steadily since the Ocalan affair, who cannot be expelled in view of their requests to be granted political asylum.
La Republica 17.11.98; Migrations Europe December 1998