Given what is happening around the world, we don't need to be great prophets to imagine that here too immigration will be central to the now imminent electoral contest. And a testing ground, difficult but not impossible, for a reformist electoral program in step with Europe and, above all, with the times. For which, using a football-type formula, I would suggest adopting the 2-3-4 scheme. What is it about?. It is soon said.
2 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
- On the electoral level, immigration does not reward or rewards little, but it punishes a lot. For the simple reason that if it is true that elections on the left are not won on this issue, it is even more true that they are lost. A truth that requires putting aside ideological rigidities and, also given the current atmosphere, understanding that the fears and rejection of many towards immigrants should not be branded as a fault but, on the contrary, faced as a problem. Which to take charge of and, to the extent possible, to alleviate with appropriate remedies. Since feelings count in politics, they do count!, for the many who, rightly or wrongly, feel or allow themselves to be convinced that they are foreigners in their home due to immigration, one thing is surely forbidden: shrug their shoulders repeating that it is their fault if they don't understand.
- The best immigration policy is the one that makes fewer mistakes than the others. In other words: the Italian experience and that of many other countries demonstrates that, given the nature of the problem, changeable and in continuous, systematic evolution, there is no single and perfect recipe ever. But, perhaps, only a relatively more effective one. Which on the basis of common sense (not common sense!), is able to self-correct by treasuring, in the future, the mistakes made in the past.
3 CONSIDERATIONS OF MERIT
- Set aside the logic for which immigration laws are made to cancel, from a to z, the previous ones (such as: let's reset the Turco-Napolitano with the Bossi-Fini which today, in retaliation, must be thrown overboard). Because perhaps it serves to spread propaganda but not to improve the governance of immigration. This does not mean, as we will see later, that what is written in the Book of the Law does not need to be updated or, in some parts, radically rewritten. But that the esprit de loi of the new regulatory interventions cannot and must no longer be inspired by the idea "let's change everything and start over". For the sole and simple reason that the Italian legislation on immigration, which began thirty years ago with Martelli, constitutes, for better or for worse, a consolidated heritage that can be modified but not erased. Hence the belief and the suggestion that any future modifications are limited and surgically aimed at modifying the parts whose application proves to be inadequate if not wrong.
- Set aside the dominus of our immigration policy: the amnesty erga omnes. Erga omnes amnesties are better. A national anomaly. For the number (six were made in the space of twenty years). For the mass of those who have used it (almost half of the current immigrants legally residing in Italy are "ex-cured"). But, here is perhaps the most disturbing aspect, due to the fact that centre-left, centre-right and even so-called technical executives have indifferently resorted to them. With the small but significant addition that the most massive amnesty of all is the one made, contrary to what many believe and repeat, not by a centre-left government but by a centre-right one in 2002.
- Set aside the habit of repeating that "immigration is a resource" without asking why and in favor of whom. This is the heart of the problem since there will also be a reason why while the economy wants them, society doesn't. A systemic schizophrenia largely produced, as occurs in modernization processes, by the fact that immigration is a cause of anxiety and, at the same time, a source of new wealth. While the sum of its factors gives a positive result, its distribution is however unequal. Reward some and penalize others. There are those who win and there are those who lose. Not only economically but, even more seriously, existentially. Perhaps it is worth recalling that the hostility of many towards immigrants is only partly the result of xenophobic sentiments. There is no ideology, however diabolical, capable of gaining a hold on collective behavior in the absence of real phenomena perceived as a threat and, therefore, rejected by society. Better, from its weakest sectors.
4 INTERVENTIONS OF MERIT
- Repeal the criminal offense of illegal immigrants. Why? We find the answer in the pages written by a magistrate, Paolo Borgna, who in addition to knowing is called, in the daily exercise of his duties, to deal with this problem: "the prison response to clandestinity, whether it is a carer or a drug dealer, is an illusion: an unrealizable promise. Experience teaches us that the criminal trial, to be effective, must be selective. It must aim at repressing particularly serious conduct for the community. It cannot be used as a tool to deal with mass behavior: its times, its costs, its rituals, increasingly burdensome, are incompatible with this purpose…[it is] a blunt tool. With the only result of arousing discontent and disillusionment among the citizens”.
- Modify entry rules for work. In the first place because they are based on an illogical assumption: an employer who is in Italy must hire someone (a) who is in another country and whom he has never met with a nominative request. But above all because on the market it is businesses or families, not the public bureaucracy, that select and pay those they need. A cumbersome mechanism capable of producing a double, negative result: pretending to set quotas that the speed of the market makes systematically obsolete. And to alarm public opinion with the announcement of the arrival of new "contingents" whose usefulness and necessity it struggles to understand. With the further aggravating factor that while the institutions continue to churn out declarations against clandestine immigration, the growing demand for labor is largely satisfied only thanks to the highly efficient, ubiquitous clandestine market.
- Reorganize the structures responsible for managing immigration. Not an easy thing given the traditional rigidity of our administrative structure and its historical aversion to any change in the balance of ministerial powers and competences. But not postponeable. Given that the migratory phenomenon, being a supply chain, to be governed would require a unity of command and not, as is the case today, administrations that often and willingly deal with it as if they were "separate at home".
- Solve it quickly and well question of the citizenship of young immigrants. Putting an end to the heated but inconclusive discussion of the last few weeks on jus alone yes, jus alone no, and allowing Italian legislation to finally align with those in force in the main European nations. Firstly because it is absurd that a country capable of naturalizing more immigrants in 2015 (178 thousand) than the United Kingdom (118 thousand), Spain (114 thousand), France (113 thousand) and Germany (110 thousand) is unable to solve the problem with dignity status civitatis of the children of immigrants as others have done. But above all because it is now clear to everyone that the social and economic future of the immigration question depends, in large part, on the degree and quality of the integration of second generation immigrants.
