U.S. Families Challenge Italy’s Citizenship Law in Court
ROME (AP) — Two American families have approached Italy’s highest judicial body to contest a regulation established by Giorgia Meloni’s government. This law, which has been in place for a year, restricts citizenship claims for Italian descendants who are more than two generations removed from their Italian ancestry.
Representing these families, lawyer Marco Mellone presented arguments to the Cassation Court. He posited that the law should be applicable only to individuals born after its enactment, which could potentially pave the way for citizenship opportunities for millions residing in the United States and Latin America. Additionally, another attorney represented descendants from Venezuela.
An outcome from an expanded panel is anticipated soon, a decision that will be binding on lower courts. A decree from the conservative administration in March 2025 curtailed previous provisions that allowed anyone proving ancestry post-Italy’s 1861 formation to apply for citizenship. Although Italy’s constitutional court recently upheld the law’s validity, Mellone believes the supreme court can further clarify its scope.
“The families involved in this case are simply descendants … from an Italian ancestor who emigrated in the late 19th century to the United States, like millions of other people, of other Italians,’’ stated Mellone ahead of the proceedings. “Today they are invoking their right to Italian citizenship.’’
The case Mellone is handling could potentially redefine citizenship rights for the descendants of approximately 14 million Italians who emigrated between 1877 and 1914, as per statistics from the Foreign Ministry.
While Mellone represents two families, another group of a dozen individuals, whose claims were halted by the law, gathered outside the courthouse to show their support.
Among them, Karen Bonadio expressed her hopes of relocating to Italy, leveraging her lineage. She brought along photographs from her childhood with her Italian-born great-grandparents, who migrated from Basilicata to New York, along with their birth certificates.
“The new law says, ‘all these great-grandchildren didn’t know their great-grandparents.’ This is from 1963, I think I was 3 ½,’’ she remarked, displaying the photograph.
One of Mellone’s cases was previously dismissed in lower courts, partly based on the argument that Italian emigrants who acquired another nationality before having children cannot transmit Italian citizenship.
Jennifer Daly has been navigating the Italian legal system for nearly ten years. Her grandfather, Giuseppe Dallfollo, moved to the U.S. in 1912 from Trento, then under Austro-Hungarian rule. He later married an Italian woman and became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Daly, a retired history professor from Salina, Kansas, stated she has always identified strongly with her Italian roots, despite her surname being anglicized by U.S. immigration authorities. She applied for citizenship because “it is truly a recognition of who I am, where I am from. It’s so much more than citizenship. It’s everything,’’ she commented over the phone.
Outside the courthouse, Alexis Traino shared that her great-grandparents from both sides of her family hailed from Italy, where she currently resides, primarily in Florence.
“My entire life, I grew up knowing — and my parents always emphasized — that I was Italian. I had a very, very strong connection with Italy,” said Traino, 34. She was awaiting documents from both Italy and the U.S. when the law was enacted, which halted her case.
“I want to be Italian. I want to contribute to Italy and be a citizen,’’ she expressed.
___
Barry reported from Milan.
