"No one is a stranger in our community"

On 31 October, the Council of Troia, a little town in the province of Foggia (Apulia), unanimously approved a motion tabled by the opposition representative, Giuseppe Becca, about honorary citizenship that will be granted to foreigners' children who were born in Italy. Approving this motion is a symbolic act, whereby the Town Council committed to granting Italian citizenship to 53 foreign children legally residing in Italy. With this, the local government is keeping up with the many initiatives being carried out throughout the country, which urge the national legislature to overcome the legal obstacles that currently deny Italian citizenship to many children who were born in Italy but whose parents are foreigners.

“No one is a stranger in our community” Leonardo Cavalieri, Mayor of Troia, said. “Inspired by fundamental values such as solidarity and equality, which are at the heart of our little town, we approved the motion proposed by the opposition leader. Most importantly, this symbolic act should be regarded as especially significant because it has been unanimously adopted by the Council.”

Italians living in “darkest period”

The Mayor added that “we are currently living in the probably darkest period of the history of our Republic, when fascism is resurgent, intolerance and fear of foreigners are the main arguments whereby some national political leaders have attracted the mass that is still suffering from the last economic downturn. It is no longer possible to passively tolerate such behaviour, it is not acceptable for us to abide the actual xenophobic drift which is taking place in our country, whereas we have learned much from values such as solidarity, and equality.”

“Whoever grows up in Italy is Italian”

“Anyone, regardless their skin color, religion or country of origin, has equal dignity. I think that not seeing such a blatant truth - especially when talking about children - amounts to an insult to the very value of human life. We are humans, therefore we claim joyfully and firmly that whoever grows up in Italy is Italian. Doing so, we accept the invite by Unicef, the National Association of Italian Municipalities (Anci) and the several organizations who work daily for the approval of a Citizenship Act based on the ius soli principle”.

The recasting of Law on Citizenship, in application of the ius soli principle, was proposed in 2015 but it has still not been debated in Parliament.