For two summers during high school, instead of joining his classmates on the beach, Noura Ghazoui had an internship at the town hall of his hometown, Borghetto Santo Spirito, on the Ligurian coast.
But when he tried to request a job at the age of 19, he found himself not admissible because, like hundreds of thousands of children born to immigrants in Italy, he could not have Italian citizenship.
“I feel Italian, I believe in Italian, dream in Italian,” said Mrs. Ghazoui in Italian with Ligurian accent. “But I’m not recognized in my country.”
For generations, European countries have mainly used blood lines to determine citizenship. The United States were an exception in the West as one of the last countries to grant citizenship unconditionally to practically anyone born there.
The order of President Trump who tried to end the citizenship of the birth right for the children of immigrants without documents of American origin, which a judge temporarily blocked last week, would have brought to the United States a step forward towards the Italy and other European countries.
But an increasing number of migrants in the United States and Europe has eliminated the debates on both sides of the Atlantic on the fact that the systems for the citizenship conference must be updated in some way, moderate or stiff.
Each approach – known to the Latin terms “Jus Sanguinis”, or blood right, and “Jus soli” or soil right – has its critics and, more and more, the countries have tried to rebalance the two.
Since the 1980s, Great Britain and Ireland (as well as Australia and New Zealand), who still had an unconditional citizenship of the right of birth, have moved in a direction similar to what Mr. Trump has chosen, limiting it.
But others, like Germany, went to the other side, making it easier for people born from immigrants to earn citizenship. The turn, the supporters say, nodded to the changing realities of a country where one person out of four now comes from an immigrant background.
“Citizenship is a politically contested question,” said Maarten Vink, co -director of the global citizenship observatory. “When he changes, he reflects the result of a political struggle.”
A shot at the rope in Europe
In Europe, the citizenship of the blood line has contributed to maintaining links with citizens who leave the country and their descendants. But most countries in Europe also offers some form of citizenship of birth right, even if usually with difficult restrictions.
In Europe, citizenship has sometimes been mixed with dangerous concepts of racism and ethnic purity, especially in colonial times and during the Nazi era, when the Hitler regime undressed the Jews of their citizenship before killing them.
Today the support to limit access to citizenship for immigrants, in addition to guaranteeing borders, is not only found on the extreme right. But the topics have been exploited by some of the right -wing extreme forces of the continent, which speak of the need to preserve the cultural and ethnic identity.
“We have to stop migratory flows,” said Jordan Bardella, president of the far -right Rally National in France, at the beginning of this month. “Many French, including some who are of immigrant origin, no longer recognize France and no longer recognize the country in which they grew up”.
Mr. Bardella’s party wants to abolish the law that allows children of foreigners born in the country to request citizenship at 18 years, provided they meet the minimum residence requirements.
While citizenship has often been described as a vehicle for belonging, it was also a powerful means of exclusion, said Dimitry Kochenov, professor at the University of Central Europe and the author of the book “Citizenship”.
“Citizenship was used by the state to denigrate certain groups,” said Kochenov.
The Italian example
In previous centuries, a much poorer Italy was a country from which millions of citizens emigrated abroad, mainly in the Americas, looking for a better life. The generous rules of blood citizenship have helped Italy to maintain a bond with the diaspora.
Even today the churches and the municipalities in Italy are clogged by requests from Argentini, Brazilians and Americans who have the right to claim citizenship through distinguished Italian origins. (More recently, President Javier Milei of Argentina has obtained Italian citizenship.)
But in recent decades Italy has turned from a land where people emigrate into one who also receives a large number of immigrants. And while Italy has changed, its law on citizenship does not.
Italy does not grant citizenship to the children of immigrants who have legal status in the country. Children of immigrants of Italian origin can only require citizenship once turned 18; They have one year to apply and must demonstrate that they have lived in Italy all the time.
This excluded Mrs. Ghazoui, who spent part of her childhood in Morocco, where her parents come from. Now, 34 years old, an employee of a company that provides naval supplies, has an Italian husband and an Italian child and has applied for citizenship based on prolonged residence in the country.
“I am the only one in the house that is not Italian and not recognized,” he said.
While the public health system in Italy does not distinguish between citizens and non -citizens, second generation children of immigrants face numerous obstacles. About 600,000 children born from the study of immigrants in Italian schools. Often they have not known any other country in Italy, but without any claim of citizenship, their lives are complicated.
Many cannot travel to Europe during school trips and have to lose school or renew their residence permits. They also say that they are constantly remembering to be different from their classmates. Many adults of Italian origin are in the same situation.
“Precariousness becomes the basis of your life,” said Sonny Olmati, 38 years old, dancer and choreographer who was born in Rome to Nigerian parents and has not yet has Italian citizenship. “Create a sense of not cure.”
Italian leaders support the law as it is currently. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hard conservative whose brothers of the Italian Party have post-fascist roots, said that “Italy has a great law on citizenship”.
Linding the citizenship of children to that of their parents is convenient, says Mrs. Meloni, in the event that immigrants return to their countries. He also said he has higher priorities than the change of the citizenship law.
Despite the position of the government, the basic associations have proposed a referendum that would reduce the period of uninterrupted residence in Italy necessary to become an Italian citizen for five years of 10. The vote is intended for spring.
“This law no longer represents true Italy,” said Alba Lala, 27 years old, secretary of Conngi, a group that represents new Italian generations. “It’s completely obsolete.”
Birthright in a modern era?
Some critics affirm the same as the unconditional citizenship of birth right.
About 20 percent of countries use it, most of them in North and South America. The United States and Canada inherited the law from Great Britain, but also the citizenship of the birth right has played an important role in newly independent countries as a way to constitute a nation.
Like those who prefer the citizenship of the blood line, supporters of the right of birth affirm that it promotes social cohesion, but for a different reason, because no child is excluded.
In the United States, the 14th amendment allowed Men and Women of African origin to become citizens and millions of children of Irish immigrants, Germans and other Europeans have become citizens.
But the citizenship of unconditional birth law remains an exception.
“In a world of massive migration and irregular migration, jus soli unconditional is an anachronism,” said Christian Joppke, professor of sociology at the University of Bern.
However, some argue that the Trump administration is not preparing to modernize a law but instead is trying to redefine the nation itself.
“Refuses the idea of America as a nation of immigrants,” said Hiroshi Motomura, an expert in immigration and citizenship at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.
Even according to current rules in the United States, citizenship of birth right is not absolute. For example, the children of diplomats born in the United States exclude. And most of the children of American citizens born abroad maintains an automatic right to American citizenship – in fact Citadenni of Blood Line.
Citizenship of origin “is really a great way to connect with people who live outside the boundaries of a state,” said Vink. “But if you want to make sure you are also included within the borders of a state, you must also have the territorial birth right.”
Otherwise, he said, the countries would have millions in their population who are not citizens.
“In a democracy,” he said, “it’s not a good principle.”
Christopher F. Schuetze reports contributed by Berlin e Aurelien Breeden from Paris.