Italy: Turco-Napolitano law amended
01 March 1999
On April 28, the regularisation of 250,000 immigrants announced in a government decree amending the Turco-Napolitano law which had fixed a maximum quota of 38,000 regularisations for irregular immigrants on February 9, is due to commence in Italy (see Statewatch vol 9 no 1). The decree resulted from the large number of requests (308,233) registered within the December 15 1998 deadline, with Albanians forming the most consistent national group (40,000), followed by Romanians and Moroccans.
This "more generous" measure has been accompanied by several others which have effectively introduced a tougher immigration regime. Among these special attention must be paid to those concerning the "assisted repatriation" of unaccompanied minors and the simplification of expulsion procedures. The measures adopted following the original text of the Turco-Napolitano law resulted in the issuing of 54,000 expulsion orders, compared with figures of over 7,000 expulsions for the previous year.
The Turco-Napolitano law came in for severe criticism from the xenophobic Lega Nord (Northern League), which called for its abolition and published a counter proposal with tougher measures, including shorter appeal times and quicker expulsions. These included the absurd proposal that: "If citizens of a specific country are the object of a number of arrests on Italian territory which is superior to the total average of arrests for all foreigners, in the previous solar year, the quota [of entry permits] for that country will be cancelled." Such proposals would make entire communities liable to suffer for the acts of individuals.
Migrations Europe, January, February, March 1999; La Repubblica 9.2.99, 9.3.99; Lega Norde "The law proposal by popular initiative" (Referendum proposal).