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

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, moreover, 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 electoral slogans into the drafting of bills. The troubled legislative path of the new bill, in fact, brought to light both the existence of marked differences 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 counterbalanced 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 followed, 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 departments 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. 40 of 1998. This increased efficiency, however, did not yield the desired results in terms of public consensus. The implementation of the rules took place quite slowly, due to a series of legal battles, but most of all due to the presence within the parliamentary majority of individuals who were extremely critical of the “repressive” side of the reform. In answer to the emergence of a strong degree of social alarm, especially in the towns of Northern Italy, the Ulivo’s interior ministers ended up wavering between rather exaggerated promises (given working possi- bilities) and largely paternalistic attitudes. A similar process occurred regarding the active entry policy. Law no. 40 of 1998 provided for the opening of legal entry channels for foreign workers, while also attempting to remove the rigidity of the previous selection mechanisms through the introduction of the “guarantor” system. Thus it was that between 1999 and 2001 the first draft of an active entry policy was drawn up, which as such was not totally unsuccessful. However, this course of action was pursued in a rather timid, uncertain way. The quotas were often set at levels below estimated requirements, and the guarantor mechanism was used only to a marginal degree. Furthermore, the government failed to reform the administrative procedures for immigrant entries, thus often leaving ample leeway for personal discretion. As regards the stabilization of the presence of foreigners, center-left governments were scared by their own boldness, ending up by totally distorting the spirit of the law they themselves had passed. The rules regarding permanent residence permits, which should have relieved a sizable share of immigrants who had been living in Italy for a long time from the task of having to continually renew their papers (thus en- abling the police to devote more time to preventive and investigative work) were interpreted in an overly restrictive way.8 The majority, moreover, carefully avoided having to deal with the reform of the current law on Italian citizenship—the most restrictive and discretional in Europe—thereby renouncing any medium-term policy of integration. The Bossi-Fini Law 167

The case of law no. 40 of 1998 is therefore a perfect example of how not to make reforms. The center-left coalition expended vast amounts of energy and political influence, during a period when public opinion was already highly critical of the Italian state’s ability to manage immigration flows, in order to pass a systematic law, but then failed to take advantage of the benefits it offered. The uncertain, uneven results of this law, moreover, led to divisions within the center-left majority and significantly exposed it to attack from the opposition.

The Issue of Immigration in the Long Election Campaign of 2000–2001

During the entire previous legislature, the center-right opposition attacked the center-left governments, accusing them of failing to prevent illegal immigration. At the local level, center-right parties fueled the continuous climate of tension, mobilizing local residents on the questions of urban degradation and lack of safety. Up until the beginning of 2000, though, the issue of immigration had been basically rele- gated to the fringes of the national political debate, making just the occasional, passionate, yet short-lived appearance. In fact, the center-right found it rather difficult to place immigration at the center of its campaigns. This was mainly due to the presence outside of the coalition of the Northern League, a party with a strong aversion to immigration. Forza Italia (FI) and Alleanza Nazionale (AN) could not risk highlighting a matter over which the Northern League could provide serious competition. Secondly, public opinion was not really hos- tile to the presence of foreigners in Italy. There was strong demand for foreign labor from firms and families, and the Catholic Church was fer- vent in its defense of immigrants. AN, which was trying its best to prove itself to be a moderate, “European” right-wing party, did not want to be accused of xenophobia in a closely fought election campaign. During the initial part of the parliamentary term, the center-right acted in a rather loosely knit manner. AN focused its proposals on combating illegal immigration, and in March 1999 presented the Fini- Landi bill, which, although it kept the basic framework of the law approved the year before by the center-left, demanded a systematic tightening-up of the more repressive measures, transforming clandestine entry, illegal presence, and “false identity or omission to state name” into criminal offenses.9 The Northern League, on the other hand, promoted a referendum (later declared inadmissible by the Constitutional Court)10 designed to abrogate in full law no. 40 of 1998, and at the same time promoted a bill underwritten by the public and 168 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino submitted to the Chamber in July 1999, containing proposals designed to prevent the settling of immigrants in Italy. FI, meanwhile, simply stood back and observed proceedings, deeming the subject of little rel- evance to its own political purposes. This situation, however, changed with the advent of the CDL electoral alliance, which was first put to the test in the 2000 regional elections. This alliance, which saw the Northern League back among the ranks of the coalition, once again made it possible to focus on the question of immigration. In fact, one of the first steps taken by the alliance was the launching of a bill signed by Silvio Berlusconi and Umberto Bossi and underwritten by the public during the regional election campaign. This bill proposed that resident foreigners be treated along the lines of the German Gastarbeiter (guest worker) model from the 1960s, and called for the repressive tightening-up of policy toward all migrants, including family members, who did not fall into this Gastarbeiter category. With the launching of this proposal, the center-right came across not only as being against illegal immigration, but also as being firmly opposed to the permanent set- tlement of foreigners on Italian soil. This is clear from a reading of the introduction to the bill, which portrays immigration as an instru- ment of destruction of social order:

At the beginning of the third millennium, Europe is characterized by two opposing models of society: (a) the neo-Jacobin model of a multiracial, universal society, standardized by the “market,” a predominant political player that uses nation-states (that is, what remains of those states) as its transmission belt; (b) the “Christian” model of a society evenly balanced between past, present and future, between the local and the global, between in and out, between new forces from without and his- torical values rooted in tradition.… Immigration is consequently used as a picklock to break up social order (thereby increasing the power of arbitration among incoherent social forces) and thus to take possession of the electoral booty (represented by a new lumpenproletariat made up by a mass of immigrants that, speculatively, are supposed to be willing to vote for the left).11

One might think (and many actually did think) that this action was essentially tied to the regional election campaign, and as such was bound to peter out at the end of it. The extremely positive out- come of the regional elections, however, showed FI and the Northern League exactly how the immigration issue could be used to win a new degree of consensus and to divide the opposition. Thus it was that from the regional elections onwards, the opposition systemati- cally used the issue of immigration, together with that of crime and The Bossi-Fini Law 169 urban decay, against the center-left. Even AN, though it maintained the position inherent in the Fini-Landi bill to the point where it rejected any association between this proposal and the people’s initiative bill submitted by FI and the Northern League,12 recognized the electoral potential of this issue. As Gianfranco Fini declared: “The DS and the Communists do not understand that immigration is being paid for by their former electors. Why is it that in the [wealthy] Par- ioli suburb of Rome the question is whether the foreign maid is good at her job or not, while in the inner city the question is whether we can walk around safely or not? This is another reason why we are going to win.”13 This strategy was particularly successful, and it enabled the CDL to force the Ulivo into a defensive position on an important issue. All subsequent measures to further reform the expulsion of illegal immigrants or to render the prevention of illegal immigration more effective actually ended up by highlighting deep divisions within the Ulivo in Parliament, thus forcing the center-left majority to backpedal continually. The moderates within the Ulivo coalition, who in fact exac- erbated these tensions in order to underline their “law and order” approach compared with the left-wingers’ line, clashed with the latter, who were predominantly concerned about not appearing too “repressive.” Thus, an Ulivo already on the defensive ended up by wavering between liberticidal tendencies and irresponsible good intentions. The center-right was therefore able to capitalize on both the emergence of moderate opposition to the immigration policies implemented by the center-left government (as expressed, for example, by Giovanni Sartori’s editorials in Corriere della Sera and by the archbishop of Bologna, Giacomo Bifﬁ) and the increasingly evident divisions within the center-left majority. During the election campaign, the Ulivo almost seemed ashamed of law no. 40 of 1998 and made no attempts to defend it,14 while the center-right, on the attack, could easily hide any differences among its members.

From Words to Action: The Passage of the Law

The second Berlusconi government came into ofﬁce on 10 June 2001. The bill on immigration, however, was not passed by the cabinet until some ﬁve months later. During this time, many of the pledges made during the election campaign were either set aside or watered down considerably. The bill, moreover, although considerably modifying law no. 40 of 1998 in terms of granting immigrants entry and of expulsions, left the section on integration policies almost unchanged. 170 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino

The formulation and passage of the bill followed confrontation within the majority. Since discussion of the first draft, a difference of opinion had in fact emerged on two crucial points: whether to turn illegal immigration into a criminal offense and whether to launch a new amnesty for illegal immigrants. Nor was there any clear agreement within the coalition over the move toward the previously mentioned guest worker model, as had been envisaged by the Berlusconi-Bossi people’s initiative bill and by Roberto Maroni’s initial proposal regarding “residence contracts.” While the Northern League repeatedly stated that the bill had to provide for the issue of granting only tem- porary visas to immigrants, AN, in an attempt to take advantage of the rather vocal support of the employers’ organizations, proposed main- taining the framework of the Turco-Napolitano law, albeit tightening up regulations on illegal immigration. The extent of these differences gave rise to repeated governmental delays in the passage of the bill, which was announced and then put off several times. When the bill was finally approved on 2 November 2001, many center-right MPs admitted that it was an unsatisfactory measure whose passage had nevertheless helped avoid further problems with the Northern League. The bill submitted to the Senate— based on a selected combination of proposals originally contained in the Fini-Landi bill and in the Bossi-Berlusconi bill, together with other proposals that had emerged in the meantime—was still of a provisional nature as regards some of its main points, and many arti- cles were formulated in an inaccurate or intentionally ambiguous manner. The text, however, was characterized above all by the number of things missing: there was no mention of the introduction of the crime of “illegal immigration” or of “the giving of a false name or omission to give one’s name”; the possibility for the parents of immigrants to join their children was restricted but not eliminated; no quotas for family reunifications were envisaged and, in order to benefit from this right, there was no need to wait for three years, as previously foreseen. Although the bill tightened the prerequisites for the issuance of a permanent residence permit by raising the necessary period of prior residence from five to six years, this was considerably lower than the eight years originally envisaged by the Fini-Landi bill. Presentation of the bill was followed by a period of parliamentary debate, sometimes very heated, lasting some seven months. It is true that during the process of parliamentary approval, some particularly restrictive provisions were softened, above all thanks to the continuous mediation of the more moderate wing of the coalition. The moderates’ influence should not be overestimated, however. While it is true that such forces managed to impose a large-scale amnesty for The Bossi-Fini Law 171 illegal immigrants (strongly opposed by the Northern League), it is also true that this was achieved at the cost of leaving the basis of the reform essentially unaltered. For example, the “residence contract” presented in July 2001 by the minister of welfare, Roberto Maroni, was to constitute the cornerstone of the new Italian immigration policy. The favorite topic of the North- ern League, this contract was left essentially intact during parliamentary debate, despite the fact that the proposed rules may have a significant effect on the recruiting of new workers from abroad. In accordance with the new procedures, an employer must not only provide jobs to the immigrant workers in question, but also furnish them with accommodation and pledge to pay their travel expenses when they return to their home country. The employer’s application, moreover, must also meet a series of conditions, including the non-availability of other unemployed workers for the job requested, which will probably have the effect of considerably lengthening recruiting times. The new worker’s residence permit will last until the employment contract undersigned by the employer expires. Although it is true that article 22 of the Bossi-Fini law provides that, should the worker lose his or her job, the permit remains valid for the duration of the resid- ual period or for a minimum of six months, this rule is far less liberal than it would appear. Since the new regulation also states that the permit is to be renewed 90 days prior to its expiry (instead of 30), and given that the trial period for many jobs is of a further 90 days, this law comes very close to tying legal status with employment. This, in turn, considerably limits the foreign worker’s bargaining power and increases the precarious nature of his or her presence. Even the reform of expulsions remained substantially unaltered after parliamentary debate. Firstly, the number of potential recipients of this measure was extended to include those married foreigners who do not live with their spouses and all foreigners condemned for violation of copyright laws or for smuggling counterfeit goods. Sec- ondly, the maximum period for which illegal immigrants can be held in detention centers was increased from 30 to 60 days. Accompani- ment to the border—that is, forcible expulsion—becomes the norm, while coercion to leave the country is restricted to those foreigners who remain in Italy after their residence permits have expired. More- over, the expulsion order is carried out immediately, even if the immigrant has in the meantime appealed to the courts. Finally, if an expelled immigrant re-enters Italy illegally or refuses to obey the police order to leave the country, then he or she can be charged with a criminal offense. The first time this happens, the immigrant in question will be arrested, detained for between six months and a 172 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino year, and then forcibly expelled; the second time, he or she will be imprisoned for a period up to four years. In both cases, arrest is com- pulsory and is summarily performed. Expelled foreigners cannot return to Italy for a period of 10 years, instead of the five years provided for by the previous law. In fact, the crime of illegal immigration, originally suggested by the Fini-Landi bill, becomes the crime of staying on Italian soil or of re-entering after an initial expulsion, even though imprisonment becomes a real risk only after the law is bro- ken for the second time. The main innovation introduced during parliamentary debate, although registered very late during the last discussion in the Cham- ber in May 2002, concerns the introduction of the obligation for all immigrants who obtain a residence permit for the first time or apply for its renewal to provide their fingerprints and photographs. Unlike the changes in the migrant workers’ charter, this proposal constituted a real media bomb, setting the left against the right, but also cutting across the two coalitions. On the opposition benches, the clash was between those who agreed with the law (such as Ulivo’s co-ordina- tor Francesco Rutelli and former undersecretary for internal affairs, Nicola Sinisi) and those who considered it to be radically racist. On the majority side of the Chamber, the disagreement was between those (such as the Northern League) who wished to apply this obligation exclusively to foreigners and those who felt that it should be non-discriminatory, that is, that it should be required, albeit in time, of Italian citizens as well. We might ask why this topic, which was not part of the bill, sud- denly appeared on the legislative agenda. One possible answer may be found in the concurrence of the presentation of this amendment and the conflict caused by the parallel debate on the amnesty and its recipients. In other words, taking fingerprints and photographs would help compensate that part of the majority which, given its fierce stand against clandestine immigration, could lose the most by the approval of a new amnesty. In September, in an interview in Corriere della Sera, Bossi continued to protest against the amnesty, claiming that it constituted breach of an agreement: “The agreement was: illegal immigrants can f— off, illegal immigrants should go back to their own countries and stay there … only those who have a work contract and a residence permit can stay.… I’m with the people against the likes of the freemasons and the bishops.”15 Likewise, the introduction of regulations aimed at involving naval forces in preventing illegal immigration, while passed off as a revolutionary new move, in actual fact is a purely rhetorical measure, given the limitations on any naval involvement as a result of international maritime law. The Bossi-Fini Law 173

In other words, during parliamentary debate, this tightening-up helped compensate for the appearance, via an amendment presented by CCD-CDU senators, of a new amnesty, initially restricted only to personal care assistants and then gradually extended to all foreign workers. The request for a new amnesty had already been submitted in July 2001, that is, long before the government presented the bill, and at that time had met with strong opposition. The CCD-CDU, together with sections of AN and FI, had in fact already presented such a proposal during discussion of the bill. However, discussion of this proposal was cut short by the opposition of the Northern League, with the result that the bill approved by the government makes no mention of this proposal. Moreover, in November 2001, only a few days after transmission of the bill to the Senate, the then majority spokesperson had resolutely declared that there would be “no amnesty whatsoever.”16 This resoluteness, however, was to be short- lived. Between December 2001 and January of the following year, during two majority summits, the Northern League had to yield to the request for an amnesty, albeit limited to personal care assistants only: “Has the hard line with illegal immigrants been confirmed then? Damn right it has: in fact, in this case we are only going to legalize the position of domestic helpers and carers, because we know this is in the interest of families. But we are ruling out any amnesty for all other illegal workers.”17 It was at this point that the strategy emerged of exchanging the gradual extension of the pool of potential beneficiaries of the amnesty for the implementation of other clearly visible repressive measures. This exchange allowed the centrists to recoup the consent of Catholic public opinion and of the employers’ associations, while the Northern League could celebrate the results achieved thanks to its own resoluteness. After obtaining an amnesty for carers, the CCD-CDU had another go, first at introducing an amnesty for all domestic helpers, and later, with the help of the employers’ organizations, one for all employees. While on 2 February the cabinet decided to submit two amendments on the use of navy vessels in combating the trafficking of illegal immigrants, on 7 February the amendment for an amnesty for domestic helpers was presented. At the end of April, the condition stip- ulated by the Northern League, whereby each family had the right to only one carer or domestic helper, was shelved, although only in the most serious, proven cases of need were two such workers to be granted, nevertheless. On 10 May, at the end of the discussion in the Chamber’s First Commission on Constitutional Affairs, the majority coalition’s spokesperson, in keeping with a government proposal, suggested the amendment of the fingerprint measure. Three days later, 174 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino

Bruno Tabacci presented an amendment for a general amnesty, which was immediately opposed by AN and the Northern League. In a climate of heated debate over the amendment on fingerprints, the majority found a solution to the problem of the amnesty: it proposed the removal of the law and the separate presentation of a decree law on a mini-amnesty, to be voted on at the same time as the law. However, the centrists’ tour de force was not over yet. The delay in approving the decree against clandestine work still gave until Sep- tember to extend granting amnesty to those illegal immigrants with fixed-term contracts as well. On 9 September 2002, decree law no. 195 legalizing illegal employment was approved. The following day, an explanatory circular, which provoked further angry remarks from Bossi, established that those non-EC immigrants who had already been served an expulsion order could in fact be legalized. At this point, the amnesty promoted by the Berlusconi government had all of the characteristics of a general amnesty, as in fact it was to be seen (see table 8.2). The granting of a new amnesty, given that the majority’s electoral platform had expressed its opposition to the legalization of irregular immigrants, appears rather paradoxical. There were structural reasons for this, however. In the first place, all Italian amnesties, which are characteristically proposed with highly restrictive standards, in the end need to be softened up for the sake of good sense and democracy. How could a measure granting an amnesty to domestic helpers be deemed legitimate when it condemned to ille- gality those immigrants who work in small or medium-size compa- nies or as craftspersons, particularly given employers’ demands for the legalization of such workers? Secondly, the amnesty derived from wise and effective mediation by the centrists, who proved capable of bringing about ideologically bold political exchanges. Thirdly, as we shall see in the next section, the amnesty actually confirmed, rather than contradicted, the government’s position on immigration, aimed

Table 8.2 The Legalizations of Immigrants in Italy, 1986–1998

No. of foreigners Amnesty measure granted amnesty

Law no. 943 of 1986 105,000 Law no. 39 of 1990 (Martelli) 222,000 Decree law no. 489 of 1995 (Dini) 246,000 Council of Ministers Presidency Decree (Oct. 1998; Napolitano) 215,000 Source: M. Carfagna, “I sommersi e i sanati. La regolarizzazione degli immigrati in Italia,” in Stranieri in Italia. Assimilati ed esclusi, ed. A. Colombo and G. Sciortino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002). The Bossi-Fini Law 175 at substantially reducing the role of active entry policies in the form of annual quotas in favor of a highly discretionary policy toward the entity, the composition, and the form of immigration.

Policy Changes and Knots in the Italian Immigration System

On 30 July 2002, the Bossi-Fini bill became law no. 189. How important are the changes it makes to the general framework of Italian immigration policies? As we saw in the previous section, the law contains few of the radical changes promised during the course of the election campaign. The new measures are certainly less liberticidal than antic- ipated, and in many cases they are softer than the ones in force in other Western European states. The most highly publicized measures seem bound to play a limited role. The rule whereby foreigners requiring a residence permit or renewal thereof have to provide their fingerprints and photographs may be of limited use in the case of immigrants reg- ularizing their illegal position, but it does not change things much for the vast majority of newly arrived illegal immigrants coming into the country mainly on tourist visas. Even the option of using the navy to prevent illegal landings is not going to lead to international police operations and risky boarding operations, given the quantity of restrictions on such actions currently imposed by international maritime law. The tightening-up of penalties for those who aid and abet illegal entry has been devised in such a way that in certain cases the punishment dealt out is milder than it was before. On the whole, the suspicion is that this additional tightening-up has been introduced with the sole purpose, admittedly successfully achieved, of focusing the attention of the public and the opposition on the repressive side of this measure rather than on its strategic contradictions. With regard to immigration control, the government seems above all to be trying to increase the efficacy of expulsion measures. According to the technical report accompanying the law, its appointed purpose is to carry out regularly 36,000 additional forced expulsions a year, thus in practice nearly tripling their number. In order to achieve this goal, ten new detention centers are to be built, and an additional 75 million euro spent in 2003, followed by a further 94 million euro in 2004. It is very likely that the new regulation will strengthen the efficacy of the procedure, following the direction already undertaken by law no. 40 of 1998. A number of uncertainties remain, however. On the one hand, the police forces themselves seem to believe that in order to implement the new law, both personnel and technology (neither available 176 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino nor envisaged at present) need to be considerably reinforced.18 On the other hand, the efficacy of the expulsion procedure depends on the effectiveness of agreements and co-operation with the countries of origin and transit, rather than on the availability of new centers. To this day, only a small fraction of those immigrants held in tempo- rary detention centers are in fact expelled (table 8.1). The fact that the changes introduced are far less radical than promised does not imply, however, that the new law is bound to be of little consequence. On the contrary, law no. 189 of 2002 greatly increases the chance of negative effects, and contributes in a certain sense toward taking Italian immigration policy back a decade or so. The Bossi-Fini law does not ease but on the contrary aggravates the difficulties of an active entry policy. The procedures whereby the decrees on the regulation of immigration flows are issued remains inflexible and totally unclear. An amendment was passed, moreover, which gives the prime minister the faculty to issue the decree estab- lishing the yearly quota of immigrants allowed into Italy, but which, in his absence, prevents the appointed departments from proceeding on the basis of the previously issued decree. This makes all medium- term planning that much more difficult. Even if this problem were of negligible importance, the fact remains that the new law abolishes the opportunity of entering the country via a guarantor, and estab- lishes far more binding conditions on an employer wishing to recruit a worker from abroad than previously existed. If we also consider the reintroduction of the mechanism that caused the failure of immigration planning between 1986 and 1998—that is, the duty of the employer to ascertain that no Italian or EU worker is available for the job in question before recruiting a non-EU worker—it appears very likely that the enforcement of the law after the term of the amnesty will greatly reduce the appeal of legal entry channels compared to illegal ones. From this point of view, the introduction of a new amnesty is totally consistent: in closing the front door and discour- aging active policies—as shown by, among other things, what hap- pened in the case of the immigration decree for 2002—it leaves the back door open to illegal entry followed by an amnesty. It could be claimed that this potential growth in the competitive appeal of illegal entry will somehow be counterbalanced by the increased dissuasion implicit in the new repressive measures. How- ever, certain doubts remain here. In the presence of a strong, structural demand for foreign labor, the attraction mechanisms will continue to work, while the legislative provisions could in fact increase immigration pressure at borders. The absence of an active entry policy also implies a crisis in the system of quotas, which had previously involved The Bossi-Fini Law 177 the countries of origin and transit in combating illegal immigration. The end of this strategy led, among other things, to a considerable increase in the number of “landings” along the Sicilian coastline during 2002. Furthermore, not only has the new law done away with the incentive of preferential quotas, but it also adopts a unilateral position substantially based on the threat of retaliatory measures toward such countries, which the past experience of many European countries has proven to be essentially ineffective and often damaging. The residence status of legal immigrants gives rise to equally urgent problems. Once again, the reform introduced by the center-right government seems to be part of a long-term trend in Italian immigration policy that fails to distinguish between the treatment of those immigrants living in the country and the problem of governing new entries. The new law certainly reveals a marked distrust toward new entries. This distrust, however, also involves immigrants who have already been living regularly, often for many years, in Italy. The Bossi-Fini law, for instance, does not tackle the problem represented by the current Italian law on citizenship, which requires those foreigners who wish to be naturalized to have lived continually in the country for a period of at least ten years. This leaves the authorities a considerable (almost total) margin of discretion. The law, moreover, adds one year to the residence period needed for the issue of a permanent residence permit; this modification seems to border on the purely spiteful. The result is a further hindrance to the administrative stabilization of those immigrants legally residing in Italy (and one that further paralyzes the offices of the Ministry of the Interior, which have to handle an even larger number of renewals as a result of the new amnesty). The difficulties of stabilizing the foreign presence in Italy are combined with the increased likelihood that immigrants’ legal status will become more precarious because of the rules governing the residence contract. In the first place, the new law reduces the term of residence permits and provides at the expiry date for the issue of a permit of only the same duration. As a result, immigrants wishing to renew their permits suffer increased humiliation, while the checking of translations and stamps is bound to take up days and days in the lives of both immigrants and government officials. Accordingly, a growing number of foreigners risk failing to renew their residence permits each year. Secondly, the joint effect of residence contract regulations and of the increase in the period by which residence permits need to be renewed is the ever more likely risk of an immigrant losing his or her legal status. It is true that this law, like the previous ones, allows the administrative machinery a remarkable degree of freedom in the redefinition of regulations. It is possible, therefore, that the effect of such regulations 178 Asher Colombo and Giuseppe Sciortino will be less devastating than it would initially appear. At the same time, there can be no certainty that this process of administrative redefinition is a necessarily positive thing. What is perhaps destined to become the major innovation introduced by the Bossi-Fini law comes into play at this point. Both the wording of the law and, more importantly, the communicative aura surrounding its aims and intentions are in fact considerably different from previous Italian immigration policies. Prior to this law, even the introduction of highly restrictive measures was always accompanied by rhetoric acknowl- edging the noble intentions of those foreigners already living in Italy and of the majority of potential immigrants. The Bossi-Fini law, both in its formulation and in its transmission, on the contrary, presents immigration as either a danger or a “necessary evil.” While introducing preferential treatment for “workers of Italian origin,” it con- firms the ascribed move toward an increasingly ethnical definition of national community;19 it ambivalently perceives missionary activities as part of co-operation for development; in modifying the practice of family reunification and abolishing the figure of the guarantor, it foments the fear that immigrants’ networks of families and friends are places of dark, dangerous machinations. Even if these regulations were to turn out a failure, they nevertheless convey a discriminatory message that, together with the high degree of discretionary power exercised by administrative bodies, could have a greater combined effect than that of the individual legislative provisions themselves.

— Translated by Elisa Craveri The Bossi-Fini Law 179

Notes

1. Giovanna Zincone, “Immigrazione,” in Il governo Berlusconi. Le parole, i fatti, i rischi, ed. F. Tucari (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 2002). 2. Giuseppe Sciortino, “Planning in the Dark: The Evolution of Italian Immi- gration Control,” in Mechanisms of Immigration Controls, ed. G. Brochmann and T. Hammar (Oxford: Berg, 1999), 233–260. 3. A. Colombo and G. Sciortino, “The Many Immigrations in Italy: Origins, Nature and Evolution of Italian Migratory Systems,” Journal of Italian Mod- ern Studies 9, no. 1 (2004), forthcoming. 4. Massimo Carfagna, “I sommersi e i sanati. La regolarizzazione degli immigrati in Italia,” in Stranieri in Italia. Assimilati ed esclusi, ed. A. Colombo and G. Sciortino (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), 53–91. 5. See Maurizio Ambrosini, La fatica di integrarsi. Immigrati e lavoro in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001). 6. Ferruccio Pastore, Pierpaolo Romani, and Giuseppe Sciortino, L’Italia nel sis- tema internazionale del trafﬁco di persone, working paper no. 5 (Rome: Com- missione per le politiche d’integrazione degli immigrati, 1999). 7. Ministero dell’Interno, Rapporto del Ministero dell’Interno sullo stato della sicurezza in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001). 8. The circulars issued by the Ministry of the Interior have in fact introduced severely restrictive conditions (circular no. 300 of 23/10/2000), which were judged illegitimate by the Regional Administrative Court (Tar) of Lombardy in June 2002. At that date, less than 21,000 permanent residence permits had been granted. 9. Article 1 of the bill, moreover, launches the idea of setting a quota for those foreigners present in each town on the basis of the ethnic background (sic) of the said immigrants. 10. Constitutional Court ruling no. 31, 07.02.2000. 11. Chamber of Deputies, no. 7234, Proposta di legge di iniziativa popolare. Dis- posizioni in materia di immigrazione, presented on 19 July 2000, 1–2. 12. Atti Parlamentari, Commission for Constitutional Affairs, Chamber of Deputies, 26 October 2000. 13. G. Fini, La Stampa, 16 September 2000, 6. 14. It is indicative of the paralysis resulting from this split that the Ulivo could not even take adequate advantage of an incident involving the center-right at the height of the election campaign, when the latter stirred up anti-immigrants feeling following a savage murder, which, it was quickly discovered, had been committed by relatives of the victims. 15. U. Bossi, Il Corriere della Sera, 10 September 2002. 16. M. Boscetto, Il Sole 24-Ore, 28 November 2001. 17. M. Boscetto, La Padania, 25 January 2002. 18. See the hearings in the Chamber of Deputies, First Commission, sitting of 10.04.2002. 19. This turning point had already characterized the reform of Italian legislation on citizenship in 1992. See Maurizio Bettini, “Italiani, veri, presunti e per metà. Riﬂessioni antropologiche sulla Bossi-Fini,” il Mulino, no. 5 (2002): 831–843.