Italy’s left-wing Democratic Party has urged the conservative government to offer citizenship to over 500,000 migrant children over the next three years.
The proposal would see any foreign national who has attended school in Italy for at least five years and is over the age of 10 to be automatically eligible for citizenship – a move the education portal Tuttoscuola calculated would affect 560,000 pupils or 60 percent of the current immigrant student population.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has repeatedly rejected the proposal but left-wing lawmakers are expected to table an opposition bill in parliament next month.
More than 80 percent of migrant students who would be eligible for citizenship under the plan live in the northern regions of the country with fewer than 15 percent resident in the south.
If the Parliament voted in favor of citizenship for migrant children attending school, more than 300,000 pupils could benefit from the law in the first year with a further 260,000 doing so over the next four years.
The foreign-born Italian athletes who took part in the Paris Olympics have been used as an example by the opposition Democratic Party (PD), which has been pushing for citizenship for immigrant children and young people who come to Italy with their families or were born in the country since mid-August.
Children must have completed five years of lower primary school or three years of upper secondary school if they arrived in Italy after the age of 12.
The proposal has been firmly rejected by the right-wing governing party, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) on several occasions in recent days, saying that the issue is not a priority for the country and is not on the government’s agenda.
Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing League, reiterated on Thursday on his social networking site that he would not accept citizenship for children born in Italy and attending Italian schools.
