The Bossi-Fini Law: Explicit Fanaticism, Implicit Moderation, and Poisoned Fruits

8 THE BOSSI-FINI LAW: EXPLICIT FANATICISM, IMPLICIT MODERATION, AND POISONED FRUITS Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino On 11 November 2002, the terms of the amnesty promoted by the second Berlusconi government to legalize those foreign workers without residence permits expired. The amnesty, the fifth of its kind in Italy over the last two decades, saw the submission of 702,156 applica- tions. If, as expected, the overwhelming majority of these applica- tions see the concession of residence permits, the overall effect will be greater than that of the sum of the two previous amnesties, promoted respectively by the Lamberto Dini government in 1995 and the Romano Prodi government in 1998. Both the existence and the success of this amnesty may appear paradoxical: it was promoted by a coalition that had previously carried out a long and exhausting election campaign focused on (among other things) the repeated accusation that the government was too tolerant toward illegal immigration, and was capable only of correcting irregular situations rather than eliminating them. In the first few months of the second Berlusconi government, more- over, the center-right politicians had announced a great number of often conflicting proposals, designed to solve the problem of illegal immigration in an exclusively repressive manner. After less than one year, a new amnesty has just expired, and the law discussed and passed by the Italian Parliament (the so-called Bossi-Fini law), despite The Bossi-Fini Law 163 making many changes, could hardly be considered revolutionary. Furthermore, it contains only a pallid version of the measures that represented the cornerstones of the election campaign of the Casa delle Libertà (CDL).1 In the present essay, we shall try to give both a description of the political process that led to such a situation and an assessment of the new Italian immigration policy guidelines from the point of view of the wider immigration system that Italy is involved in. After summa- rizing the structural problems of Italian immigration policies in the first section, we shall analyze the way in which the reform of immigration legislation has become one of the hottest topics in the lengthy Italian election campaign. The CDL took advantage of this issue with remarkable communicative ability, and kept its adversaries in a situation of difficulty and unease (albeit often self-inflicted; see the second section). This communicative success, nevertheless, constituted a strong tie for the new government, when it had to translate its elec- toral slogans into the drafting of bills. The troubled legislative path of the new bill, in fact, brought to light both the existence of marked dif- ferences in the positions of the various sections of the governing coalition and the rather unsustainable nature of many of the measures originally proposed (see the third section). Once again, the Bossi-Fini bill saw a repetition of what had already been observed in the previous reforms on immigration legislation: the introduction of restrictions on new immigrants entering the country had to be coun- terbalanced by a new amnesty for those irregular immigrants already living in Italy.2 The question arises as to whether the approved measures allowed for a more adequate definition of Italian immigration policies. Many of the apparently modest changes seem to have been based on a fundamental refusal to deal with some of the more important structural difficulties encountered in the management of immigration into Italy (the fourth section). The Structural Problems of Italian Immigration Policies Immigration is a phenomenon that has been present in Italy for at least three decades. Ever since the end of the 1960s, Italy had been involved in a series of immigration systems, often totally independ- ent from each other and structured around individual contacts in the absence of government recruitment programs.3 In the years that fol- lowed, new immigration systems have emerged due to both the geopo- litical transformation of Eastern Europe and the Balkans and to the gradual rise of new flows of immigrants from several African and Asian 164 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino countries. This complex situation contributed toward rendering the development of an adequate immigration policy particularly difficult. For a long time, immigration policy had been totally remitted to administrative bodies, and in particular to administrative depart- ments of the Ministries of the Interior and of Labor, which developed their own regulatory machinery based on a rather creative use of the fascist rules introduced in the 1930s that were designed for the purposes of governing the presence of a few hundred politically suspect foreigners. When in 1986 the Italian Parliament approved the first law concerning foreign workers in Italy, this tradition of the rather discretionary management of foreigners present in the country had already blossomed and was only slightly affected. The most remarkable example of this is the fact that to this very day the vast majority of immigrants, even those who have been living in Italy for many years, possess only residence permits that need to be frequently renewed. These renewals depend, in turn, on a multitude of administrative circulars, of directions for their creative interpretation by branch offices, and often on the attitude of individual officials. Hence, a situation has developed whereby foreign workers living in Italy find it extremely hard to settle down, while the offices dealing with this segment of the population spend almost their entire time handling hundreds of thousands of files. As far as new immigrants are concerned, the first immigration laws (no. 943 of 1986 and no. 39 of 1990) added a model of immigration regulation of a neo-corporatist kind, based on the one used by other European countries when managing post-war immigration. This model—fashioned after the Fordist factory—is totally unsuitable for dealing with labor demand from small, medium, and family enter- prises in the main. It follows that for a period right up to 1998, in fact, the demand for foreign labor could not be satisfied legally. The combined effect of the considerable discretionary powers of administrative bodies and the absence of an entry policy has rendered illegal immigration endemic. The vast majority of legal foreigners currently living in Italy have the frequent amnesties to thank for their resident status.4 These two problems became increasingly urgent during the 1990s. On the one hand, the immigration systems expanded and became dif- ferentiated, and the presence of foreign workers acquired a structural character in an increasing number of segments of the labor market and of local areas.5 On the other hand, spurred on by the European-wide process of co-ordination of immigration, Italy adopted increasingly restrictive measures regarding both regular entries and entries for the purposes of tourism. The combined effect was an additional increase in clandestine immigration and the emergence of an authentic business The Bossi-Fini Law 165 of organizing illegal immigration along all of the main borders, accompanied by a significant loss of control over the dynamics and the behav- ior of this segment of the population.6 The limits to the efficacy and efficiency of Italian regulations gradually came to light. In particular, the reform of expulsion orders (see table 8.1), which had been criti- cized for being ineffective and biased in favor of those who commit crimes, became a priority issue in legislative debate as of 1994–1995. The center-left government elected in 1996 made considerable efforts to implement the wholesale reform of Italian immigration legislation. Law no. 40 of 1998, the Turco-Napolitano law, actually appears as an integrated reform of the instruments of control, immigration flow regulation, and the integration of resident foreigners. As far as the instruments of control are concerned, the reform approved by the center-left contained some important innovations concerning both the turning back of illegal immigrants at borders and the expulsion of those who have managed to enter. At the same time, the law prepared the ground for reinforcing the rights of those immigrants legally living in Italy and introduced the instruments needed for an active entry policy in the form of a system of quotas that were calcu- lated in a more realistic manner than had been the case in the past. Table 8.1 Expulsions from Italy (1991–2002) 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Expulsions ordered 28,733 35,120 52,918 61,627 58,894 37,362 Expelled by judicial warrant – – – – – – Accompanied expulsion 4,927 4,653 6,395 6,888 7,287 4,700 Held in detention centers – – – – – – Expelled after being held – – – – – – 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002* Expulsions ordered 52,111 44,121 40,489 64,734 58,171 50,625 Expelled by judicial warrant 432 520 396 373 341 – Accompanied expulsion 8,950 8,546 12,036 15,002 21,226 23,366 Held in detention centers – 5,007 8,847 9,768 14,118 17,625 Expelled after being held – 2,858 3,902 3,134 4,437 6,078 *Figures for 2002 are updated to 30 November. Source: Ministry of the Interior. 166 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino Law no. 40 of 1998, however, had a series of diversified effects. As regards the repressive measures, the years subsequent to approval of the law were undoubtedly characterized by much more efficacious measures against illegal immigration: the number of people being turned back at borders increased remarkably; there was increased co- operation with several of the countries who accounted for this flow of immigrants (countries of origin and of transit); and the repression of the aiding and abetting of illegal immigration became a priority for the police forces.7 In particular, as table 8.1 shows, the number of expulsions carried out increased remarkably, thanks to the provisions of law no.

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