Briefing with Ferruccio Pastore, Deputy Director, Center for International Policy Studies (CeSPI) in Rome, Italy

June 30, 2004

Why propose regularization?

Despite Italy’s relatively short immigration history, in 2002 it conducted its sixth regularization program.  The first regularization occurred in 1982 and the numbers of immigrants involved increased substantially with each program in subsequent years (see Table 1).  An unanticipated large number of applications (over 700,000) were filed for the 2002 regularization.  This regularization was one of the largest ever conducted anywhere in the world.  It is second in absolute size only to the United States’ Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which had just under 2.7 million applications.  However, in terms of the proportional size relative to the total population, Italy’s 2002 regularization was larger. 

With approximately 1.5 million foreigners legalized over the past 20 years, Italy accounts for approximately 45% of all regularizations processed (3.3 million) in Western Europe since 1973.  Figures are very difficult to obtain, approximate, not always updated and often lack transparency.  In a broad sense, regularization is used to manage unauthorized immigrants.

Responses from National Governments

Dr. Pastore identified four different policy responses that a government can take toward unauthorized immigrants.  Listed in decreasing restrictiveness, they are:

1. Removal/Forced Repatriation: removal to a third country, if it is practical and legally possible and forced repatriation, if the home country is willing admit them.  This response occurs more frequently than in the past, due primarily to the increase in both formal and informal readmission agreements concerning third-country nationals
2. De facto tolerance of the presence of unauthorized immigrants
3. Regularization
4. Legal Stay: allowing “legal unauthorized persons” such as asylum seekers to stay even if they are illegal entrants

No liberal democracy uses only one of these four possible government policy responses.  For most countries the management of unauthorized immigrants sees a policy mix that blends some or all of these responses. In order to make country comparisons it is necessary to focus on this policy mix and compare differences.  Dr. Pastore argues that the differences among European states in managing unauthorized immigrants are largely reflected in the different views of regularization as a policy tool.

Political debate on regularization is a rarity.  Dr. Pastore differentiated between those European countries where regularization is a viable option and matter of policy debate and other countries where it is not.  In the Scandinavian countries and small countries like Luxembourg and Ireland, regularization has occurred, but in practical terms has played a very minor role to the national policy debates on migration.  In other countries, such as Germany, there are significant undocumented foreign populations.  In the absence of official estimates, unofficial estimates of Germany’s undocumented population, taken from journalists and researchers vary widely from 500,000 to 2.5 million people. Yet regularization does not figure on the political agenda in Germany with some minor exceptions for a small number of rejected asylum seekers. So regularization as a primary policy tool is not used in this case. The absence of regularizations in the German political debate is not an accident, but rather the outcome of a deliberate policy choice.  There is a firm bipartisan agreement that prevents even a discussion on the issue.  Even in countries that do not suffer from such radical political taboos, the actual meaning of regularization can vary.

A third type of national political scenario is one where regularizations are seen as to combine pragmatism and humanitarianism.

This wide variation in policy responses and discussions reflects very deep and fundamental differences on the concept of sovereignty. 

Implications for the Development of European Policy on Migration

For at least two decades, controlling and reducing irregular migration has been a key stated priority in European cooperation in the area of Justice and Home Affairs. Such cooperation, however intense and productive in some areas, has evolved quite selectively. Advances in cooperation and harmonization have long focused almost exclusively on border controls, visa policies and, more recently, anti-smuggling activities. Discussion of a common approach to repatriation has only been on the table for some two years. Yet regularization programs, and the possibilities they bring, have not figured on the agenda at all. There is, therefore, a large gap in the development of a common EU policy on irregular migration. 

Yet regularizations have taken place in various Member States. With other steps in harmonization on immigration and asylum issues and on border controls, these regularizations can no longer be said to affect only the Member State in which they take place. They impact all of the European states. Under the Schengen rules, non-EU nationals who are legally resident in one member state are allowed to circulate freely in all the other Schengen countries for a maximum 3-month period.  Regularized immigrants are included among those legal residents, creating an interdependence that makes the issue of regularization in one state relevant to all the others.  Also, in November 2003 the Council issued a directive that regulates the status of long-term third-country nationals in one of the member states.  Assuming this new set of European norms will be incorporated into national legal systems, the freedom of movement for third-country nationals will be expanded, further covering movement for working purposes, but with many limitations.  This creates an interest from states that do not undertake massive regularization or do not make regular use of this policy tool to push for restrictions or even a continental ban on the use of regularization.  However, such pressures will continue to be unsuccessful at least until countries such as Italy and large immigration countries develop more open and efficient admission systems, which will make regularizations avoidable and not a periodic structural necessity.

Questions and Answers

Does the Italian government punish those businesses that do not legalize their own workers?  If so, what are the penalties?

To punish employers who continue to employ illegal workers would require a significant improvement in Italy’s law enforcement capacity.  Italy’s last regularization was a first for Europe in that migrants could ask for their own legalization.  Before that it was the duty of businesses to regularize their own workers.  In previous regularizations, it had become apparent that Italian companies were not requesting regularizations.  They did not fear reprisals and were content with the situation.  A movement quickly grew demanding that illegal workers be permitted to denounce their employers and obtain work permits. Towards the end of the regularization application period the Italian Minister of the Interior decided to allow this.  Workers could then start judiciary action against employers who refused to apply for regularization and thereby entitle their employees to a 6-month work permit.  The typical work permit lasts for one year.  But after this extraordinary measure, the overall law enforcement capacity to control the workplace was not improved and remained totally inadequate.   Couple this with the fact that legal admission channels for work permits are still inadequate, and it is not difficult to see that in 4-5 years Italy will be faced with the same problem again. 

The attitude of the public is crucial to such policy and it has to be understood.  The public benefits significantly from irregular immigration.  In the latest Italian regularization, half of approximately 350,000 applications came from families who have hired either illegal domestic workers or illegal home care workers.  Italy is increasingly a country of the elderly.  So there is a great need for home care.  Also, the welfare system is a particularly clumsy one that used to be and still is linked to stably employed people and is not a universalist welfare system like the Northern European countries.  There was thus a very large interest group pushing for regularization.  Additionally, Italy’s economy is heavily dependent on small and medium enterprises.  Since the Italian government sets limits on the number of foreigners that companies can hire, only large companies can afford to hire from abroad.  They also can hire just based on resumes, but small and medium-sized businesses want to see the workers before they hire them.  So for many businesses there is a real need to have the ability to hire workers legally and it is a necessary evil to recruit illegally.  There was an important constituency for regularization including civil society organizations such as trade unions that were pro-immigration and in favor of a legal form of immigration to avoid improper competition in the labor market. Also there is a constituency for regularization and it is the same for Spain, Greece, Belgium and the Netherlands.  The Dutch government is envisioning deporting 23,000 rejected asylum seekers.  In small northern Dutch towns the Dutch population mobilized in an unprecedented way to keep their own ‘refugees’ there [The rejected asylum seekers of course do not have refugee status in fact].  The population at large had become fond of the asylum seekers and found them useful through their local, perhaps illegal, employment. But the government still wanted to deport them. 

Is there something going on behind the large number of domestic and home care workers?  What are the other changes that the government might have taken not only to increase the opportunities for legal employment but also to renew them?  For example, in the Spanish case, you have people who fall into undocumented status because it’s so difficult for them to get renewals even though they may be eligible for renewal.

This is a problem of administrative sustainability of regularization.  Before this latest regularization program, Italy had 1.5 million legal foreign residents. The figure increased thus by 50% after the regularization. One would thus have expected fifty percent more legal foreign residents to apply to renew their permits this year, and a commensurate increase in administrative capacity. Permits were granted to only one million foreigners, however.  The necessary massive upgrading of the administrative structure was simply not carried out.  Now the permits, which were issued last year, have expired and the backlog is enormous.  The delay to get a permit renewed in Rome is at least one year.  So you have permits that are valid for one year but a one-year wait time.  Thus, once a person receives their permit, in essence they need to put in the application for the following year’s renewal.

It is not clear how many of the 700,000 applications in 2002 were from people who were previously regularized and then fell back into an irregular state.  Some research done on the 1986 regularization suggested that as in Greece and Spain there was a substantial share of regularized people who were being re-regularized.  On the contrary, research on the 2002 regularization seems to show that this was not the case for that particular amnesty.  It probably depends on economic cycles and the degree of the economic sustainability of the regularization.  Other factors explaining this extraordinary result of the 2002 regularization include the institutional push factor formed by the visa waiver for Romanians instituted by the European Union on January 1st, 2002.  Since that time Romanian nationals no longer need a visa to enter the EU.  This was promised to Romania in the framework of negotiations for accession to the EU and after the painful process of improving their border and exit controls.  The result was an effect on mobility flows at the pan-European level and it is not by chance that the most common nationality in Italy’s regularizations was Romanian followed by Albanian (Albanians do still have a visa requirement), Moroccan, Ukrainian (a novelty to Italy’s immigration system) and Moldavan.  The Romanian numbers were bolstered by the fact that it is fairly easy for a Moldavan to obtain a Romanian passport.  For a Ukrainian national it is also not too difficult to enter Romania and buy a Romanian passport illegally. 

What benefits does one receive when regularized? Is Italy discovering that immigrants are moving to cities that are not traditionally immigrant cities as in the United States?

The permit is valid for one-year permit and allows the holder to look for another job if they should lose the initial one. The permit holder has a 6-month grace period to find a new job otherwise the permit cannot be renewed. There are no restrictions in terms of economic sectors or geographic limitations. There is an entitlement to family reunification: in fact, Italy has liberal family reunification laws. Under certain restrictive conditions, elderly parents are allowed if they are completely dependent on their child and they have no children in their country of origin. Spouses are allowed to work. Once you are regularized you can utilize the health and welfare system. However, welfare benefits such as housing are much more limited than in other European countries. 

A regularized person can become a citizen, because after the initial one-year work permit renewal it becomes renewable every two years.  After 6 years of residence, a regularized person can obtain a permanent residency card.  However, the number of permanent residency cards issued is very low.  Ten years of permanent residency allows one to apply for citizenship.  Again, the rates of naturalization are very low.  Italy has one of the lowest naturalization rates, but most of those obtaining citizenship do so through marriage.  It is important to know that citizenship is granted by administrative discretion.  It is not an entitlement.  It is the opposite of the United State, where social benefits are limited for illegal immigrants but the attainment of citizenship is relatively easy.

The distribution of immigrants is still primarily in northern and central Italy and they are still the regions that attract immigrants.  Those regions are at the heart of manufacturing sector, but the agricultural sector and household services are now also large employers of illegal workers.

Are people required to undergo security clearances and background checks when they apply for regularization?

Yes, based on criminal record and the Schengen Information System (SIS).  The Schengen Information System is a database of undesirable aliens within the European Union and functions as a watch list.

There was an increase in illegal entry during the regularization time window.  Was there a consistent increase in the number of illegal entries after the registration for regularization had ended?  Were the numbers primarily from within Europe or from areas like Northern Africa or other region?

It is important to note that the bulk of illegal foreigners are people who overstay their visas.  Illegal crossings are becoming less and less important, but they remain important in terms of newspaper headlines.  Also there are pull factors, but those have more to do with Europe as a whole as a popular destination.

Am I correct that the idea of earned regularization is not used much in Europe and does that say much about the policy differences between the US and Europe?