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Home , Illegal immigration, Italy, Spain

AMERICA , Law& The Immigration Conundrum in American and Laws and policies in Italy and Spain reveal ambivalence about immigration.

by Kitty Calavita

Both Spain and Italy have significant undocumented immigration populations. In this article, Kitty Calavita explains the origins of increased migration to Italy and Spain, beginning in the , the role of immigrants in the , the anti-immigrant backlash, and and policy today.

pain and Italy have long been countries of , sending millions “Spain and Italy of working men, women, and to every corner of the globe since the late . In the decades after II, and found labor opportunities closer to home, shuttling back and forth to passed their first Snorth and central where they supplied the backbone of the industrial labor force for the post-war economic boom. This migrant began to immigration laws in reverse itself in the early 1980s, as many former emigrants returned home, and these southern European countries attracted large numbers of immigrants from 1985 and 1986, beyond their . Italy experienced its own “economic miracle” in the post-WWII decades, respectively.” drawing large numbers of rural people from its less developed southern regions to its northern industrial centers. By the mid- the gap between Italy and its northern European neighbors had narrowed. The increased employment opportunities and higher wage levels associated with this transformation attracted immigrants from , , and America, much as in earlier years Italians had migrated north to better jobs. By 2006, approximately 4 million foreigners resided in Italy, with an estimated 300,000 being undocumented. The vast majority of these immigrants come from outside the . While Africa is the largest source , immigrants also come from eastern and , Asia, and . Spain also experienced massive internal migrations in the midtwentieth , when the industrial areas in and around and , and in the Basque region, attracted the landless populations of the rural south. But the high of external immigration beginning in the mid-1980s was new. The number of legal foreign residents in Spain went from fewer than 250,000 in 1985 to over 3 million by 2006. With just 11 percent of the population of the European Union, Spain receives an estimated 22 percent of its immigrants.

Kitty Calavita ([email protected]) is of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of , Irvine. She is author of Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

7 Insights on Law & Society 7.2 • Winter • © 2007 American Bar Association The single most important country Immigrant are heavily As in Italy, the proportion of immi- of is , but Spain is also concentrated in domestic , espe- grants in the Spanish workforce has host to a substantial Latin American cially elder care and . The need increased every year for the last two population, not surprisingly given its for immigrant caregivers is particularly decades. The number registered with the linguistic and colonial-cultural ties to acute in southern Europe where the social security administration doubled the region. A slightly larger share of is less developed than in in just two years from 2000–2002, with Spain’s immigrant population is undoc- some areas of northern Europe where non-European immigrants comprising umented than is the case in Italy. state-sponsored child care and provi- four out of every ten new workers cov- Spain’s economy has been shaped by sions for the elderly are the norm, and ered in the social security system. And a unique set of historical circumstances, the demand is further accentuated by they are even heavily represented most notably the Francoist regime. the rapidly aging population. The large in the underground economy, where it Since Franco's in 1975, the Spanish metropolitan areas of and is estimated that immigrants account economy has grown by spurts and starts, account for roughly half of all immi- for at least 15 percent of the workforce. undergoing unprecedented levels of grant domestics (three out of four More important than their mere expansion between 1986 and 1990, when domestic workers in these two cities are numbers, they fill critical niches in the over two million new jobs were created, immigrants). Spanish economy—usually those that more than in any other European country. While still lagging behind Italy in terms of and standard of living, Spain too has gone far in narrowing the gap with the rest of the European Union. As in Italy, Spain's social protections have expanded rapidly and its welfare state is now almost comparable to that of other European .

Immigrants in the Economy One out of every four new hires in Italy is an immigrant. They are clustered in several sectors, the primary ones being , , , domestic service, and other services, with their distribution across these sectors Chinese employees work in a textile firm in the Macrolotto of Italy. Prato is varying by region, gender, and - the biggest textile district in Europe, counting 1700 textile and clothing industries. ality. More immigrants work in manu- Italy is home to 25,000 Chinese contractors. facturing in Italy than anywhere else in Europe, where they tend to be more While immigrants are an increas- have been vacated by local workers. highly concentrated in services. Wages ingly central part of Italy’s economy, Based on Interior Ministry data, they and working conditions for immigrants they continue to be concentrated in the are concentrated in agriculture, con- vary between the north and the south “underground,” or illegal economy. It struction, domestic service, and the of the country, even within the same has been estimated that Italian employers industry, with a far smaller categories of work. What remains con- save at least $13 billion a year on taxes fraction in manufacturing than in Italy. stant is that they are generally worse and social security payments by using As in Italy, immigrants in Spain provide than for local workers. Whole Chinese immigrant workers in irregular employ- not just a supplemental workforce, but immigrant families working in the gar- ment, a figure that would increase sub- a particular kind of workforce, i.e. one ment industry in often stantially if their lower wage rates were that will do the jobs, and under condi- earn the equivalent of $250 a month for also considered. 8–10 days.

8 Insights on Law & Society 7.2 • Winter • © 2007 American Bar Association tions, that most Spanish workers no its internal borders, and pressure mounted longer accept. to control the numbers who slipped in. For Further Reading And as in Italy, the location of immi- Consistent with the view of immi- grants in different sectors varies across grants as temporary workers, Italian Andall, Jacqueline. “ Verdean regions. In the south, more than 90 per- and Spanish immigration laws contain Women on the Move: ‘Immigration cent of immigrants—mostly from North few provisions for permanent legal res- Shopping’ in Italy and Europe,” Mod- Africa—work in labor-intensive, hothouse idency or . is ern Italy, 4:2 (1999): 241–257. agriculture, while in the northeastern based primarily on , trans- Anthias, Floya, and Gabriella Lazaridis, of Barcelona they are distributed lated from Latin as “right of blood,” which eds. Gender and Migration in Southern across construction, tourism, and a means that children born to immigrants Europe: Women on the Move. New York: range of services, and in Madrid they within these countries do not automat- Berg, 2000. are more likely to be found in domestic ically become citizens. Indeed, those born Calavita, Kitty. Immigrants at the service. In every sector, immigrants to illegal immigrants are themselves Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in occupy the most precarious niches and considered illegal. Southern Europe. Cambridge: Cam- are usually compensated at lower rates Most permits to reside legally in these University Press, 2005. than comparable local workers. countries are temporary and depend on having a work permit, which must be Cornelius, Wayne A., Philip L. Mar- renewed on a regular basis. Recent laws tin, and James F. Hollifield, eds. make it possible for those who can string Controlling Immigration: A Global Per- multiple years of temporary per- spective. Stanford: mits to apply for permanent legal . Press, 2004. However, it is extremely difficult to meet Zolberg, Aristide. “Wanted But Not the stringent standards required to achieve Welcome: Labor in Western this status, and relatively few have been Development.” In Population in an successful. Among the most daunting of Interacting World, ed. William , the obstacles is the requirement to work 261–297. Cambridge, Massachusetts: without interruption in the formal econ- Harvard University Press, 1987. omy, thereby excluding the majority of immigrants who do at least some stints in these countries’ underground . Legalization programs are implemented trasted to segregation, exclusion, and every few years, with applications some- rejection. Integration policies include times reaching several hundred thou- language courses and socialization Immigration Law and Policy sand. Those who are legalized, however, classes, as well as tolerance campaigns Spain and Italy passed their first immi- are generally extended only temporary that encourage local populations to accept gration laws in 1985 and 1986, respec- legality and have to demonstrate contin- immigrants’ cultural differences. tively, and have enacted amendments ued formal employment and navigate a Since passing its first immigration and regulatory changes almost every maze of government bureaucracies to law in 1986, Italy has formally endorsed year since then. Despite what seems renew their permits. the notion of equal social rights for like constant tinkering, some consistent While these laws and policies make it legal immigrants. Both the original themes characterize these laws. Most difficult to establish permanent legal 1986 law and the Martelli Law in 1990 notably, they are based on the principle status, at the same time government made reference to equal access to housing, that the increasing influx of immigrants policies stress the importance of immi- public , social assistance, and from the Third World must be controlled, grant integration. The term “integra- the national system. The or at least managed. These Mediter- tion” is used in these countries to refer Tu rco-Napolitano Law of 1998 is ranean countries became the southern to social and cultural inclusion and widely recognized as the blueprint for gate to Europe just as it was dismantling tolerance for diversity, and is con- immigrant integration in Italy today,

9 Insights on Law & Society 7.2 • Winter • © 2007 American Bar Association despite a few retrenchments made by evident in some other western - “Wanted But Not Welcome” the conservative Berlusconi Adminis- pean countries, nonetheless, immigrant The legal system arguably exacerbates tration in 2002. advocates and those urging tolerance this perception of difference. Despite Spain has followed a remarkably express concern. well-intentioned programs to integrate similar path. The Preamble to its 1985 The anti-immigrant backlash has immigrants, laws that inhibit the full law spoke of “facilitat[ing] the integration many roots and in myriad forms. of immigrants into Spanish of aliens into Spanish society.” By 1991, Most immigrants work in low-wage and Italian society by limiting their ability as both legal and jobs that Italians and Spaniards have to put down permanent roots, ensure increased, so too did the emphasis on rejected. Not only does this mean that their continued marginality. Policy- integration. Resolutions, administrative they are by definition economically dis- makers thus face a kind of catch-22, decrees, and speeches before tinct from population, but the with immigrant workers confined to regularly warned of the need to ensure temporary and contingent permits to do the of immigrants. work that locals mostly shun, but with this A liberal law passed in 2000 over the “The anti-immigrant fact contributing to backlash against the opposition of the conservative Aznar impoverished immigrant population. Administration, giving immigrants backlash has In the and western equal rights to Spaniards in access to Europe, there is substantial ambivalence public education, health care, housing, many roots and towards immigration, with immigrant and social security protections, and workers filling niches in the economy making these rights contingent on comes in myriad but often experiencing . being registered in the local munici- Laws and policies in Spain and Italy pality as a de facto resident, rather than forms.” mirror this ambivalence, on the one hand, on formal immigration status. limiting immigrant incorporation and on the other, exhorting immigrants to Anti-Immigrant Backlashes low-wage nature of these jobs amplifies integrate. As the populations of these It is often said that Italians and Spaniards that distinction and traps them in . southern European countries age and are more tolerant of immigrants than The concentration of poverty within birth rates plummet, these societies are are their western European neighbors. the immigrant population operates as a increasingly dependent on immigra- Their relatively low levels of stigma, a sign of difference, and—for tion. How they with the catch-22 are consistently affirmed in surveys. In some—a mark of inferiority. Cultural surrounding the immigrant influx will one study of attitudes towards immi- and religious differences often com- have consequences for the nature grants, Italians and Spaniards had lower pound this perception of difference and of these societies in the twenty-first anti-immigrant attitudes than citizens fuel the fire of intolerance. century and beyond. of any of the other participating Euro- pean countries. However, the low xenophobia levels FOR DISCUSSION are relative. Absolute levels are fairly high, with almost one-third of Spaniards and In what industries or sectors are immigrants employed in Italy and in Spain? Italians saying they “strongly agree” or “very strongly agree” with statements How does the “underground” economy in Italy benefit employers? characterizing immigrants as threatening, What themes or trends emerge in immigration laws in Spain and Italy? harmful, or dangerous. Anti-immigrant How do these countries deal with integration issues? riots periodically expose the intensity of these perceptions. While the political What does the author mean by the phrase “Wanted But Not Welcome” to parties that exploit xenophobia have not characterize the place of immigrants in Spain and Italy? attained the levels of popular support

10 Insights on Law & Society 7.2 • Winter • © 2007 American Bar Association