Introduction

Although Spain overtook its top ranking at the turn of the millennium, Italy remains one of Europe's largest immigration countries in terms of net migration (see Table 1). When it comes to yearly growth rate of the foreign-born population, Italy ranks even higher: third among the developed countries reporting migration statistics to the OECD, after Spain and South Korea (OECD 2007: 59).

Despite such impressive figures, established trends and the fact that the country's migration rate became positive some 30 years ago, Italy still perceives itself to be largely a ‘new immigration country’. Legal, institutional and administrative infrastructures for the management of migration and for the promotion of integration processes are still underdeveloped (minus a few exceptions, as will be illustrated). With a chronic statistical deficiency and a systematic shortage of funding for empirical research, this kind of infrastructural ‘backwardness’ affects the cognitive foundations of migration policymaking.

As the focus of this volume is modes of migration regulation, it should be noted that the fundamental normative and institutional features of the Italian regulation system were only defined relatively late, during the 1990s. Until Law 39/1990, for instance, Italy thoroughly lacked any national legislation on asylum (apart from a single, albeit quite advanced, article in the 1948 Constitution), as well as on the criteria for the granting, renewing and withdrawing of a stay permit (permesso di soggiorno). It was only Law 40/1998 that introduced the possibility to keep undocumented foreigners in custody prior to expulsion (in facilities known as centri di permanenza temporanea e assistenza; see Section 2.3), and that a stable, long-term resident status was created on paper (based on the granting of the carta di soggiorno; see Section 5.2). The Law of 1998 was also at the root of the current admission system, which is based on yearly entry ceilings set through ad hoc governmental provisions (so-called decreti-flussi; see Section 3).

The control side

Prevention of clandestine entry: the ‘Schengenisation’ of external borders

Law 39/1990 and Law 40/1998, both key in setting the essential features of the Italian migration regulation system, were drafted under severe pressure by international political constraints generated in the Schengen intergovernmental environment.