FROM A SOURCE TO A DESTINATION COUNTRY OF MIGRATION

As it’s well known, Italy has a long tradition of out-migration and it has begun receiving sizeable inflows of migrants only in the last decades: it’s in 1974 that the number of immigrants coming from abroad exceeded, for the first time, the amount of Italian migrants’ expatriations.

Between 1876 and 1942 nearly 19 millions of Italians went abroad, almost half of them crossed the Ocean. The vast majority of expatriations had been recorded at the beginning of the 1900’s, until the First World War. From 1876 to 1900, a growing flux, composed by spontaneous and individual emigrations, addressed to Argentina, Brazil and United States, together with Austria-Hungary and Germany. A following phase, from 1901 to the beginning of the war, records the top number of expatriations, an average of 600thousand each year, the United States of America being the most important country of destination. After the fall of the migratory flux, during the First War, a gradual growth in the number of expatriations from 1918 and 1930 and a new decrease due to the fascist anti-emigration policy, the post-war period records a growing number of expatriations until the beginning of the Seventies, mainly directed to Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland.
It’s since the late 1980’s that numerous migrants from Third World countries and Eastern Europe, most of them unauthorised, have been entering Italy: during the late 1980s, the inflow from non-EU countries was estimated at more than 100,000 people per year. In the 1990’s the foreign population grew slowlier, so that by 1999 migrants living in Italy, either legally or illegally, were estimated at a number between 1,300,000 and 1,500,000 people, or about 2.3% of the domestic population. Few of them entered Italy holding a residence permit. The number of permits granted to people from East European and underdeveloped countries increased substantially (from one third to 40%) after each of the five regularisation’s schemes, which took place in 1986, 1990, 1996, 1998 and 2002. Regolarizzazione or sanatoria in the Italian legislation on immigration means a special provision of the law, which rectifies or ratifies the illegal stay in the country, so that all irregular immigrants meeting specific requirements are granted a residence permit.
As a consequence, after being a country of emigration for more than a century, Italy has been forced to cope with a rapid change of roles because of the coming of migration flows from various parts of the world. In only ten years – from 1992 to 2002 – foreigners have increased by 264%. According to most recent data and estimations, the foreigners regularly present in Italy are 3,582,000 (1st January, 2007) which is equal to about 6,1% of the total population. Immigrant’s presence in Italy is mainly for work reasons (56,5%), even if permits for family reasons are rapidly increasing: from 14.2% in 1992 to the present incidence of 35,6%.
As far as the distribution on the national territory is concerned, the statistics show that foreigners with regular permits in Italy aren’t distributed evenly throughout the country, but they tend to concentrate in those regions, which offer the greatest opportunities. The Northwest regions record the highest number of presences (38% of the total), followed by the Northeast ones (27%), the Centre ones (23%) and the South ones (13%). On the whole, the analyses carried out on recent data confirm the existence of important territorial gaps concerning the development of the phenomenon of migration within the Italian reality. First of all, this is true as regards the clear contrast between a Centre-North characterized by a presence that in average is more lasting and regular, and a South where immigrations is less intense and consequently less deep-rooted. However, some contrasts may be noticed also as regards a further distinction, transversely to geographical coordinates, between large metropolitan provinces, such as Rome, Milan, but also Naples, Palermo and Bari, and the so-called “minor provinces”. While the former stand out because of relatively higher immigrants’ irregularity and density rates, the latter give sometimes the impression that the phenomenon of migrations takes “second place”, with lower irregularity levels and greater signals of taking root in the territory and in local communities.
As for the continent of origin of the foreigners residing legally in Italy (December 31st 2006), nationals from European countries account for the largest group (49.6% of the foreigners holding a stay permit), followed by Africa (22.3%), Asia (18%), America (9.7%) and Oceania (0.1%). As far as the single nationalities are concerned, the change in the structure of the foreign population by nationality clearly confirms Italy’s status as an immigration country in which flows are diversifying and are not just linked to a few countries: the number of sending countries is huge and many of them are very distant and have never had economic or cultural relationships with Italy. The largest foreign group is the Albanian group (which has been growing since the early 1990s), which accounts 349,000 resident foreigners, followed by the Moroccan one (once the largest foreign group), which accounts 320,000 residents, and by the Romanian group (with 298,000 residents). The following countries are China, Ukraine, Philippine, Tunisia, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia, Ecuador, India, Poland, Peru, Egypt, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Moldavia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana.
The increase of the permanently settled immigrant population is responsible for the growth of the share of the foreign population under the age of 18, for the considerable increase of the numbers of marriages and above all for foreign citizens births. In the second half of the 1980s the proportion of foreign children born in Italy was only 1.1% of the total number of births; this proportion has reached 4.5% in 1996, 4.8% in 2000, and 9.4% in 2006: this figure is probably the most important indicator that a significant proportion of foreigners is in the process of settlement on a permanent basis. In 2005, 51,971 foreign citizens births were recorded, out of a total of 554,022 births recorded in Italy.
The about 50,000 minors registered by the 1991 census survey, rose up to 284,000 units ten years after, and further increased up to reach 502,000 units as to January 1st, 2005.
Also the percentage of foreign minors attending the Italian school is in uniform and constant growth. In 1983/84 there were only 6,104 pupils without Italian citizenship in the Italian schools (0.06% of the total); ten years later (1993/94) they were 37,478 (0.41% of the total); in 2003/2004 they reached the amount of 282,683 (3,49 of the total), and in 2006-7 they reached the number of 500,512 (5,6% of the total). From the beginning of the century the yearly growth rate has not ceased to rise, reaching a yearly increase by 80,000 units in the two-year period 2003-2005. If the largest groups of foreign citizens present in the Italian schools are compared, it emerges that the most consistent quota of minors comes from Albania with 77,983 students, followed by Romania with 68,446 students, Morocco (67,768), China (24,364), Serbia-Montenegro (16,011), Ecuador (15,799), Tunisia (13,392), Peru (12,696), Philippine (12,602), Macedonia (12,469).
Finally, even if the data available are insufficient to make a detailed analysis of long-term trends concerning mixed marriages, we can notice that marriages in which one or both persons were foreign accounted for 13.5% (33,266) of all marriages contracted in 2005 (but the divorce rate for marriages involving foreigners was twice as high).
We can also notice the gender composition of the different ethnic groups, showing the variety of migratory models, even if, as the years go by, we can observe a re-balancing trend. In 1997, a good balance between masculine and female components was already notable (males constituted 55.2% and females 44.8% of the total number of foreigners present in Italy). In 2002, a complete balance was almost reached, with males constituting less than 52% of the total.

A crucial problem in the debate on immigration in Italy has been always represented by irregular immigration. Very rarely, however, has such a problem been dealt with the necessary instruments, which involve the availability of correct data about the real proportions of the problem itself, its structural features and distribution on the Italian territory. It was only in the late 80s that the first official estimates concerning the phenomenon of irregular immigration in Italy were made public by the National Institute of Statistic. The figures referring to the irregular immigrants were estimated as running as high as 500,000: in other words, one out of two immigrants was an irregular. Such a figure was significantly reduced when the first comprehensive law on immigration came into force (law 39/90) and 220,000 new residence permits were issued as a result of the 1990 regularization. In the following years, on the basis of statisticians’ and demographers’ observations and remarks, we can reasonably believe that those regularization provisions may have had the effect of “emptying the basin” of irregularity, which was however unavoidably destined to grow again in the following years. The total amount and the characteristics of the irregular foreign population can be therefore described ex post on the basis of the number of applications submitted on the occasion of the different regularization laws (which obviously do not include all irregular migrants, but in any case a meaningful part of them). In turn, these regularizations measures reflect the development of the phenomenon of migration going to Italy, through the succession of heterogeneous flows in terms of migrants’ national origins and characteristics. Irregular migration has marked a development process, which follows closely the pattern of the flows that interest the whole European migration system, and particularly the South-European one. The predominance of migration flows from North-African and Asian countries has progressively given way, in terms of percent relevance on flow volumes, to migration waves first originating in particular from the Balkan area, and later on, from former-Soviet system countries, and also from Latin America.
Thank to a research carried out by the Ismu foundation of Milan on behalf of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies during the second half of 2005 it was possible to estimate the numerousness of foreigners originating from Pfpm’s (Paesi a forte pressione migratoria = heavy migration pressure countries, new EU member states included) without a residence permit. According to this source irregulars totalled about 540,000 units, one fourth of which settled in the South. This area was characterized by both particularly high irregulars’ percentage (27% vs. 16% on a national scale), and by lower presence stability. A projection of this estimation with reference to 2006 (1st July) results in a number of 760,000 irregular migrants, decreased to 350,000 at the beginning of 2007 (which is equal to about 9% of the total number of Pfpm’s migrants living in Italy), thank to the large number of entry quotas admitted by the government.

The evolution of the Italian legislation

Traditionally an emigration country towards America, Australia and Northern Europe, Italy experienced a migration turning point during a peculiar stage of the history of international migrations, characterized by the rise of restrictive policies, and particularly, by the closing of the traditional Central-North-European destination areas. The role of historical and political factors in structuring migration flows has resulted by far less important than in other European countries with an earlier migration tradition. Those migration flows were in fact “spontaneous”, and migrants began to flow independently of any active recruiting policy, usually with no links with the colonial past, attracted by the relative facility with which they could enter the country and stay despite an irregular status, and by the possibility to mask the real motivations of their permanence, considering Italy’s tourist vocation. Along with offering many opportunities to include those migrants in shadow economy, this phenomenon contributed to further increase a widespread irregularity, in terms of persons presence and labour, and was destined to weigh for a long time upon integration processes to such an extent as to be identified as the distinctive feature of what was later called by some authors, the “Mediterranean immigration model”. It took several years to make Italy, as well as the other South-European countries, aware of its new role within the international migration system, and an even longer time before it recognized the existence of requirements for imported labour, considering the sudden turnabout of its demographic trends. In a situation of overall normative and institutional deficit, which characterized Italy’s migration transition, lay and religious associations and organizations acted as real substitutes for an insufficient and inadequate public intervention action (to such an extent that several scholars talk about a situation of “functional overload” in charity organizations, which were obliged to make themselves responsible also for tasks that did not concern them).
-   Juridical vagueness has thus become a basic element in the relations between immigrants and Italian society. In fact, the first law on immigration dates back to 1986, that is, more than ten years after the “turning point” of 1974 (the year in which for the first time the number of incoming foreigners exceeded that of the Italians who emigrated abroad). Law 943/1986, besides establishing an entry and access mechanism to the labour market (which however remained substantially not enforced), granted equal protection to Italian and foreign workers, and acknowledged to the latter a few social rights, including the right to family reunifications. More extensive were the subject matters of the so-called “Martelli Law” (Law 39/1990), which besides introducing a yearly flow planning system, also laid down some regulations concerning foreigners’ legal protection, expulsion, asylum, and self-employment. The first organic set of rules came only in 1998, through the passing of the “Napolitano-Turco” Law (Law Decree 286/98), which was also the fruit of the reflections and the pressure power of third-sector institutions and civil society. In countertendency with the juridical frame prevailing in Europe in those years, this law acknowledged, along with expulsion factors, also the existence of attraction elements strictly connected with Italy’s economic requirements for imported workforce, by providing for a special mechanism aimed at determining every year the required incoming immigration quotas for labour purposes (in addition to the flows for family or humanitarian reasons, which are unpredictable and cannot be planned). This law also introduced a possibility of obtaining new entry permits to meet the demand of the labour market: Italian and foreign citizens legally present in the country (but also collective bodies and organisations) had the possibility, if they guaranteed their own maintenance, to bring people to Italy who were given a year’s time to find a job (a possibility to be exerted within the quotas defined by the government)).
Apart from those reasons, these measures are based on four fundamental principles, which define the “Italian integration model”:
a.   Interaction based on security: the law provides for a set of tools aimed at fighting irregular immigration, carrying out expulsions, fighting criminality and human being trafficking;
b.   Safeguard of personal rights extended to irregular migrants: the law provides for compulsory education granted to all foreign children, regardless of their residence title; in addition, it guarantees healthcares also to irregular migrants and introduces a residence permit issued for social protection purposes in order to safeguard the victims of human being trafficking;
c.   Regular migrants’ integration: the law ratifies the same civil and social rights as those granted to Italian citizens, acknowledges the right to family reunifications and introduces the institution of a residence paper (carta di soggiorno, a permanent right to stay in the country, which can be obtained by those who have achieved a residence seniority in Italy of five years at least);
d.   Pluralism and communication: the law respects cultural differences also through the safeguard of the language and the culture of the country of origin; at the same time, it acknowledges the right to literacy; finally, it provides for the involvement of no-profit organizations in carrying out integration policies.
We can consider the integration model outlined by the legislator as a “reasonable” one, that shows considerable openings to social rights, but a substantial closure in terms of political rights. In addition, an anachronistic law on citizenship, passed in 1992 and based on the descent principle, emphasizes the “familistic” and abscriptive characteristics of the Italian model, which are also evidenced by a definitely lower rate of naturalizations, out of the overall number of foreigners present, than the one reported in the other European countries (therefore, a marriage with an Italian subject is still nowadays the most widespread method used by foreigners to achieve the Italian nationality). A further serious gap in the juridical system is the lack of an organic law regulating the status of political refugee, a circumstance that contributes to explain the small number of asylum petitions accepted by Italy.
However, the most relevant limits do not refer so much to the text of the law, but rather to its actual enforcement. The debate which preceded and followed the passing of the Consolidated Act was monopolized by the theme of security, meant both as border controls and as fight against criminality attributed to foreigners, as well as by a very strong media exposure of the whole migration question. Those circumstances diverted the public opinion’s attention from some qualifying aspects of this law, such as the introduction of a residence paper, implemented however with great delay, and the norms concerning fight against discrimination, which from a certain point of view, “go beyond” the directions of the European Union (insofar as they extend the principle of equal treatment also to citizens from third countries). Along with the well-known farrago and ineffectiveness of the Italian bureaucracy – the impact with migrants makes even more evident – several researchers have noticed in norm application an excessive administrative discretion, and quite often, a considerable territorial diversification in the treatment reserved by the public administration to immigrants, further increased by an operators’ and managers’ insufficient information and sensitization action. The number of convictions concerning crimes with racial discrimination purposes is negligible, for the time being, also because foreigners, and particularly irregular migrants, tend for different reasons not to denounce the episodes, quite often committed by other foreign subjects, of which they are the victims. This turns also into a lack of a sufficiently abundant case law to which reference can be made. Furthermore, the establishment of a contact centre against racial discrimination at the President’s Office of the Council of Ministers does not seem, for the time being, to have had an impact as significant as that of similar services implemented in other countries, either, even if we can expect a development in the coming time. Finally, by analyzing migrants’ inclusion processes, the consequences of the peculiarities of the Italian welfare system cannot be neglected, since its strongly “familistic” characterization penalizes the subjects who cannot rely on the support of family and neighbouring ties. Therefore, the right to equal treatment granted to foreign and Italian subjects in acceding any resource and social opportunity clashes with a situation of widespread discrimination (especially as regards some sectors of society, such as the real-estate market) and with a socially shared expectation to reserve to the local population a privileged access to resources and social opportunities. Consequently, if on the one hand, Italian citizens have become increasingly aware of the usefulness of immigrant labour, on the other hand, they are still convinced that Italians are those who are first entitled to benefit from certain rights and benefits.
For some aspects, the “Bossi-Fini” Law, passed in 2002, has acknowledged these subordinate incorporation expectations by:
a.   Limiting entry possibilities (through abolition of entry possibilities aimed at allowing migrants to go in search of a job, reintroduction of the principle of local workforce unavailability aimed at filling some jobs for which an authorization to a foreigner’s entry is required, restriction of the criteria regulating family reunifications);
b.   Introducing some restrictions concerning immigrants’ permanence, which in any case results more strictly bound to being in possession of a job contract (besides the abolition of entries aimed at allowing migrants to go in search of a job, this law has also reduced residence permit duration – particularly in the case of unemployment –;
c.   Increasing penalties and measures aimed at fighting irregular immigration, through the introduction of a new kind of crime in the case of a further migrant’s irregular entry in the Italian territory after expulsion, the provision for forced expulsion in case of irregular permanence, the extension of “administrative detention” (which may arrive to 60 days).
According to our opinion, one of the most vulnerable point in the juridical regulations on immigration still in force consists in the distance between the norms that regulate entries for labour purposes and the actual procedures through which usually migrants’ economic inclusion is carried out. Despite the troubled preparation process undergone by the entry management system in force, and the growing number of granted authorizations over time, which has made Italy one of the major countries officially importing workforce, there remains a worrisome gap between granted authorizations and actual number of immigrants who enter every year the Italian labour market without holding a residence permit in the position to allow them working regularly.

According to several researchers and key informants, this gap is the outcome of three different factors: a) a quota restriction policy, which results undersized not only in relation to the migration pressure from abroad, but also to the requirements declared by the economic system; b) law procedures that scarcely reconcile themselves with the urgency characteristics through which the demand for workforce reveals itself, and in general, with the procedures through which labour demand and offer meet within a post-Fordist economic system, where labour demand is pulverized and a relevant share of imported labour offer is absorbed by families and micro-production units; c) above all, spreading and rootedness of shadow economy, which represents an enormous absorption reservoir for immigrants’ concealed labour, disregarding the effect of further increasing it, related to migration dynamics themselves (considering that, according to the Italian law, the possibility to be regularly employed is excluded for those who are not in possession of a valid and effective residence permit).
In the session of 24th April 2007 the Council of Ministers adopted a bill of law to be presented before the Parliament. The most relevant aspects of this proposal are the following: a) the adoption of a new triennial system of determination of incoming immigration quotas for work reasons, to be fixed considering not only the absorption capacity of the labor market, but also of the “fabric of the society”; b) the reintroduction of the possibility to entry in Italy in search of a job by a mechanism of sponsorship; c) the increase of the residence permits’ duration, whose renewal will be committed to the municipalities; d) a modulation of the sanctions concerning the illegal immigration, according to the seriousness and the reiteration of the violation; e) the reform of the role and functioning of Temporary Reception’s Centers (administrative detention).
Finally, we must note that, because of the legislation in force and the functioning of the procedures, the grant of citizenship (except for the case of marriage) requires very long implementation times both for immigrants and for their children. Moreover, the procedures in this regard are still rather uncertain. Face to face with continuous entry flows, there is the risk that within few years there will be several million adults permanently residing in Italy without any political right and destined to remain in this condition for a long time. Considering this situation, in the session of 4th August, 2006, the Council of Ministers adopted a bill of law changing the rules concerning access to citizenship, whereas the bill of law adopted in April 2007 contains the proposal of granting political rights on a local scale even to foreign residents without Italian citizenship, extending them the provisions already in force for foreigner citizens from an EU member country.

The characteristics of immigrant participation in the Italian labour market can be summarised through a series of processes.
a.   The first process is that of a demographic exchange in that segment of the population which is working age, term with which we mean the compensation function of the decrease in the Italian population determined by natural movements; which must both maintain the volume of productive forces on an adequate level to sustain labour demand and also sustain the contributory (tax) system. Especially in the regions that associate a dynamic economic situation with a rapidly ageing population, after those jobs that locals refuse to fill, the foreign presence appears to be clearly destined to fulfil a structural function by substituting workmen who arrive at retirement age. Even if statistical sources provide clashing indications, they however allow appreciating the continuous and considerable growth of regularly employed foreigners.
b.   A second process concerns the territorial diversification of job hiring conditions, which is justified by the chronic North/South dualism that characterises the national economy, but also by the less severe, though still unbalanced, situations that can be seen on a sub-regional level. The spatial distribution of immigrant workers employed by firms represents the most eloquent indicator of the phenomenon we are interested in. Many authors have also observed that it is possible to identify different territorial models of immigrant inclusion. If it is true that among the various dimensions of integration there is no deterministic and unilateral relation, then it is also true that the hiring conditions of the labour market tend to go along with recurring patterns of social integration. The local society approach seems to be essential both to describe the inclusion processes of the new comers into Italian society, and to examine the mechanisms that regulate a harmonic living together harmoniously and what promotional actions need be taken to achieve this goal.
c.   A third aspect concerns precisely the inter-relation between these two spheres, that of inclusion in the productive system and integration into the social web. An effective formula coined at the beginning of the ‘90s spoke of the difference between “an economic citizenship” and “a social citizenship”: the first was substantially reached (even if it remained invisible) while the second was still missing. The following reflection has not ceased to reveal the risk of a discontinuity between the various dimensions of inclusion. The housing problem is the main stumbling block in the path of immigrants entering the social web. Even if this is a national problem it is still within the most economically dynamic local societies which use foreign labour that it becomes a crucial point concerning the results of inter-ethnic co-habitation: the marginality of foreigners in the housing market constitutes a substantial component of an incorporation model shared by the host society, which resolutely balks at taking up a perspective of equality concerning access to opportunities and social rewards. Indeed, even in the most open-minded and sensitive municipalities, housing policies for immigrants are felt as a very treacherous issue, in terms of political consensus. In other words, hospitality and integration strategies usually focus on low-profile policies aiming not at touching a public opinion’s raw nerve. However, if housing continues to be a crucial problem for many immigrants, on the other hand there are some new developments to be highlighted. They include the marked increase in the demand for home-ownership. More precisely, the significant evolution in patterns of settlement, migratory models and the degree of consolidation of certain segments of the immigrant population have profoundly modified the demand for housing in recent years, gradually shifting attention from the search for shared housing towards rental of an independent accommodation, culminating in the purchase of a home for the family. In any case, in a country like Italy, where home-ownership is very high (over 80%) the figures of ownership by foreign citizens are still very low and difficult to quantify.
d.   The fourth process we wish to point out is consistent with this model of subordinate incorporation: the ethnicization of the job market, which in Italy, as elsewhere, constitutes one of the most significant components of the labour market segmentation. This process depends on both labour demand and labour supply. Employers’ approach to immigrant workforce is characterized by a tendency to reproduce over time the same conditions through which foreigners’ participation in the labour market has taken place up to now, assigning them the lowest jobs in the professional hierarchy: the fact of being a foreigner originating from a poor country actually becomes ad identification mark to allow encountering demand within the circuits that allow access to “immigrants’ jobs”. As far the supply side, the so-called “ethnic networks” play a decisive role, specifically when they steer newcomers towards the available jobs, in an effort to match a very flexible offer with the outstanding demand. The resulting ethnically based categorisations become so firmly established that it is then taken for granted that immigrants of a given origin are specifically qualified to do only one type of job and to work in specific sectors, such as the less remunerative stages of the building industry, the services to family, catering/restaurants and cleaning services. Referring to official data and surveys carried out in different places, the process of ethnicisation has proved to turn, as to immigrant women, into a condition of heavy occupational segregation. Although foreign women have become essential for the good functioning of our economic and social system and massively work in sectors such as domestic help, nursing, industrial cleaning service (jobs with little or no qualification at all), they have to overcome huge obstacles in case they wish to find an alternative to these set patterns.
e.   The fifth process concerns discrimination phenomena that show up in different ways: as discrimination at the entry level, discrimination in working conditions and discrimination in the career path. The discrimination at the entry level is well represented by the process of ethnicisation of the labour market; we must add that Italian employers increasingly show a tendency to make generalisations about the immigrants’ behaviour – whether directly or indirectly experienced –: this, in turn, results in stereotypes and a negative stigma is often attributed to specific nationalities. After all, from the point of view of an employer, relying on a network that has always been trustworthy in giving the “right names” is a sort of “strategy” that can cut the personnel selection costs. At any rate, not all national communities benefit from the same “relational” resources (the so called “social capital”) necessary to support the process of individual emancipation and, as a consequence, passing from one national group to another, the unemployment rate records considerable variations. As far as working conditions are concerned, the most relevant economic index we usually refer to is the contract. One of the most frequent forms of discrimination towards immigrants is the resort to improper forms of contracts. If, on the whole, the Italian labour market shows an increasing and not always justified resort to what is called in Italian “lavoro para-subordinato” (a mixture of temporary and occasional professional services, subcontracts to craftsmen and so on), when it comes to immigrants we observe the recurrent use some forms of “escamotages”, for instance the co-operative associations: in short, although the immigrants work full-time for a given employer they are not to be found among his paid co-workers but among the members of a co-operative company to which specific phases of the production cycle have been assigned; the labourers involved are not only paid less but are also deprived of rights and safeguards (such as leave of absence, paid holidays, insurance against accident, and so on) and forced to work longer shifts, while, around them, other co-workers – usually Italians – are regularly employed and paid by the firm.
Discriminations in the career path are primary expressed by the process of disqualification of educated foreign labour, a process that affects about 70% of all immigrants in Italy with a higher education level and that passes, for the most part, almost unnoticed.

4. The social construction of illegality
Finally, we must mention that process which certain scholars define as the social construction of illegality. As we have noticed above, for a long time the legislative scene has been an obstacle to legal entries for work. In addition, the underground or illegal economy is widespread in Italy, especially in the South, but also in the North and in particular in certain sectors which have a high percentage of immigrants such as, construction, industrial cleaning, catering work, domestic labour, and handicraft sub-order companies (besides Mediterranean agriculture and street vending).
According to many experts and operators, the major cause of irregular immigration consists in an over-restrictive admission system. This opinion is shared in particular by several pro-immigrant organizations, first of all the Italian section of Caritas, which is unanimously considered one of the major actors as regards integration matters, and in its annual Report does not forget to denounce the “prohibitionist” nature of migration policies. This position is also supported by the entrepreneurial universe associations and organizations, which have repeatedly criticized not only the admitted entry volumes, but also the complicated admission procedures, by revealing in any case their interest in having available a workforce to which a structural value is nowadays acknowledged. By attributing to regularization applications the meaning of a meter for unanswered labour demand, they assert that the possibility to legally migrate to Italy is undersized not only in relation to the unstoppable migration pressure from abroad, but also in relation to the potential demand volume (a conclusion that, in our opinion, require a great deal of cautiousness).
Besides the different opinions about the number of admitted quotas compared to the Italian economic system requirements, the question is that the planning system outlined by the legislator does not seem in the position, in spite of all the efforts made in recent years as regards inter-governmental cooperation, to carry out an actually deterrent function to irregular immigration. Furthermore, it does not absolutely restrain the actions of the illegal migration industry. It should be however noted that irregular migration pressure is limited in countries where the signature of agreements aimed at contrasting illegal immigration through the assignment of privileged quotas has produced particularly significant results.
Irregular migration to Italy represents only a tessera of a larger mosaic – such as the phenomenon of persons’ mobility –, which, as everybody knows, is assuming a planetary character and extent, with compositions, and directions that become increasingly unrelated to migration policies. Italy’s configuration and geographical position make it a nerve centre for the irregular migration flows originating from the Mediterranean and Balkan areas, even though merely for transit purposes towards other European countries.
In the particular case of migrations from East-European countries – from which lately the largest flows have originated – there are many incentive factors, which refer to a migration pressure driven by the deep changes occurred in the local societies along with the passage to market economy. These factors also depend on an economic integration process with the EU-member countries, which has been recently started, though it has already become tangible through a process of production unit delocalization carried out by several Italian enterprises; on a geographical closeness and possibility to relatively easily obtain entry visas; on the attraction power exerted by ethnic networks, which are not yet in the position to organize their country-fellowmen’s legal immigration process on a large scale, but at the same time are still tempted to make a profit from the great amount of emigration candidates; on the perception – especially among the female component – of a relative abundance of informal job opportunities in work activities in support to Italian families .
On the other hand, ethnic networks play a role that goes far beyond the migration flows originating from Eastern countries. An analysis of the results of the different regularization provisions seems to confirm «that in most cases, illegal flows are generated by the same reasons that drive regular migrations and not because some national groups are particularly inclined to avoid ordinary entry procedures». Contiguity with the industry of illegal immigration and human being trafficking for exploitation purposes, calling systems on a family and community basis, mechanisms of emigrated fellow-countrymen’s emulation are some of the factors that contribute to make ethnic networks a strategic element in providing migration flows with a self-propulsive dynamics.
In any case, the major attraction factor for illegal immigration consists undoubtedly in shadow economy spreading and taking roots, a phenomenon characterizing the whole country, which however takes some peculiar regional and sectorial features. In absolute values, the northern regions, thanks to their abundance of job opportunities, collect the great majority of “undocumented” migrants. Nonetheless, it is in the southern regions that irregularity becomes a sort of “normal” element in an institutional development and operational model we might define as a “widespread illegality model”. In those regions, infringements to labour regulations take structural features showing different levels of seriousness, and even lead to the establishment of “phantom” enterprises that find in illegal immigration a particularly advantageous recruitment area. In the particular case of agriculture, immigrants’ concealed labour is included in a system of mutual benefits involving employers, new coming immigrants, and for some aspects, also local workers who enjoy public unemployment benefits. In addition, this system is encouraged by the high territorial mobility of the immigrants’ workforce, which during the year moves from one region to another (the so-called “seasonal workers’ circuit”) following the calendar of fruit and vegetable production turnover. Furthermore, since the assignment of the quotas established by the planning decrees reflects the unemployment rates of the different regions, the southern districts usually find themselves with a workers’ contingent widely below the amount demanded by the producers’ organizations, thus making the resort to irregular labour almost unavoidable. Immigrants’ propensity to abandon this sector and move to regions that offer better-paid job opportunities constantly regenerates the demand for workforce, which finds in irregular and illegal immigration a “natural” answer.
In the more dynamic regions from an economic point of view, immigrants’ irregular employment is instead a contiguous phenomenon with “porous” borders in comparison with a generalized tendency to multiply “bad jobs” and make job relations precarious and mixed up with an impudent use of only apparently legal contractual solutions. The case of the building industry, a sector that collects a significant part of irregular immigration and employment, is particularly impressive, as this is a sector in which outsourcing logics more evidently go along with labour precariousness. In low-qualification services, and in the whole area of the so-called “bad jobs”, concealed labour may be described as the last stage of a dismantling action carried out on the typical institutions and rights of the “société salariale”, where immigrants’ labour discrimination and underpayment give easily rise to social dumping phenomena. In virtue of the indissoluble ties established by the legislator between job condition and residence rights, the informalization of job relations ends by being strictly connected with migration dynamics. On the one hand, because it attracts new irregular flows driven by the belief of having the possibility to be easily included in shadow economy. On the other hand, because it exposes also the regular immigration component to the risk of not succeeding in obtaining, on expiry, a residence permit extension, thus contributing to the social construction process of irregularity.
Finally, we must add that a chronic lack of inspection activities, and a substantial non-application of sanctions – also of a penal nature –, which are instead provided for by law for those who employ irregular migrants, makes the potentially discouraging capacity of these provisions quite ineffective. This is even more valid as regards home help and caretaker jobs in families, where the decisive factors leading to irregularity mostly depend on a family need to limit the cost of those services, on the urgency with which these needs reveal themselves, on the possibility to easily conceal a worker’s presence, on likely scarce controls/inspections, lack of institutionalization, lack of deterrent public policies, and on the fact that this market represents nowadays a “normal” outlet for the newcomers who come to Italy illegally or with a tourist visa: these are the major reasons that almost physiologically expose this sector to the risk of informality. On the other hand, expulsion provisions are normally used for the safeguard of public order and not as a strategic tool to fight irregular immigration and employment. This circumstance heavily affects its deterrent value, even during the stages that seem politically less “friendly” to migrants.
Finally, we cannot undervalue the attraction effect exerted by the reiteration of regularization provisions, considering that, in the Italian experience these measures do not ask migrants to prove a residence seniority exceeding few weeks or few months. This effect further spreads out when these provisions are actually “announced” before time, thus allowing already present migrants to organize in advance the arrival of their relatives and friends. In the particular case of the 2002 regularization, the “announcement” effect was confirmed by an “explosive” irregular migrants’ increase in Italy – which produced a number of applications that went far beyond all expectations – and by the high number of entries reported close at hand to the regularization, or even after its official enactment.
The irregular status of many migrants is the outcome of a legislative malfunctioning, but above all, as we previously remarked, of a deeply rooted shadow economy, which over time has strongly conditioned their relations with the institutions of the Italian society, their inclusion processes in the welfare structures (up to cause their “informalization”, that is, their actual opening also to non-entitled parties when safeguard requirements deemed fundamental are at stake), as well as the immigrants’ image spread by mass media. The formal system of rights and controls, which regulates immigration for economic and humanitarian reasons, goes along, in fact, with an informal system of employment, social support, “tolerance” towards irregular presence and labour, and a periodical resort to mass-regularizations, which have become the “normal” procedure for managing migration flows. Furthermore, any legislator’s action aimed at renewing the juridical framework concerning immigration has unavoidably been followed by an amnesty, which has always been announced by the public authority as the last one, with the wish that the new regulations would prevent reconstructing another area of irregularity over time. A wish that clearly has not come true, since instead, the recurrence of regularization measures may have actually contributed to de-legitimize the normative structure, and strengthen the belief that both the Italian borders and the Italian society are extremely “porous” towards irregular immigration.
The migration “normalization” process, certified now by its indissoluble ties with the everyday life of the Italian society and by the fact that it is perceived in this way by the public opinion, has ultimately kept up with a repeated resort to “exceptional” regularization actions, as to their political definition, but also of such an extent as to significantly weigh not only upon the resident foreign population volume, but also upon the whole population itself (whose strength is now actually entrusted to migrations from abroad). An overwhelming majority of regular migrants who live and work in Italy have been through an irregular approach with our country and by a more or less long permanence in illegal conditions. Quite often, even those who have always been regular migrants succeeded in migrating thanks to the presence of a relative who had passed to legality through an amnesty. This datum alone provides tangible evidence of the failure of sovereignty, or better, of its central manifestation, which in the contemporary international juridical paradigm is represented by control on migration flow movements . Amnesties have been repeatedly interpreted as functional substitutes of ineffective or undersized admission policies. Consequently, their reiteration has ended by producing the paradoxical effect that planning policies are perceived nowadays as regularization measures, allowing the “entry” of migrants who actually are just living (and usually working) in Italy. The price that the Italian society is going to pay is a dangerous discredit of the principle of legality, with all the consequences that this implies for the social cohesion.

References

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King, R./Lazaridis, G./Tsardanidis (eds.): Eldorado or Fortress? Migration in Southern Europe (Macmillan Press & St. Martin’s Press, Houndmills & New York, 2000)
Morris, L.: Managing Contradiction: Civic Stratification and Migrants’ Rights (in: «International Migration Review», XXXVII, 1, 2003, pp. 74-100)
Pastore, F.: Che fare di chi non dovrebbe essere qui? La gestione della presenza straniera irregolare in Europa tra strategie nazionali e misure comuni, in: Barbagli, M./Colombo, A./Sciortino, G. (eds.): I sommersi e i sanati. Le regolarizzazioni degli immigrati in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004, pp. 19-45)
Valtolina, G. G.: Attitudes and orientations in Italian society, in Fondazione ISMU: The Eight Italian Report on Migrations 2002, Milan, 2003, pp. 141-161
Yearly Italian Report on Migrations realized by the ISMU Foundation of Milan, see: www.ismu.org and www.polimetrica.com
Zincone, G. (ed.): Primo rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000, pp. 157-192)

Laura Zanfrini, Professor of Sociology of Migrations at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy

November 2007

FROM A SOURCE TO A DESTINATION COUNTRY OF MIGRATION

The evolution of the Italian legislation

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