Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of Italian immigration policies on migrants’ lives. Policies and changes in policies can affect migrants’ capabilities to stabilize themselves in the host country, in terms of legal residence and secure labor conditions, as well as their chances of becoming part of the host society. We argue that, together with border controls, these are crucial ways through which immigration policies may have the postulated effects on the lives of migrants. We use data from 59 in-depth interviews conducted with first-generation Moroccan and Egyptian migrants living in two Italian cities, Turin and Rome, in the period 2011–2013. The results show that Italian immigration policies do not successfully control migration inflow, but effectively hinder the stability of migrants’ legal status and the status transition from temporary residence to permanent residence and subsequent Italian citizenship. In this way, Italian immigration policies largely affect migrants’ capabilities to be part of the host country; this gets in the way of integration, social cohesion, and future migration projects.
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Notes
According to the Convention, receiving countries should promote social and economic integration of migrant workers through basic human and work rights (social benefits, strikes, association, membership in labor associations) and family reunification.
The interview source is reported according to the following coding system: “M” and “E” represent Moroccans and Egyptians, followed by a specification of the gender of the interviewee (m = male, f = female) and by the year of arrival in Italy. Thus, Em1989 refers to an Egyptian male who arrived in 1989.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their gratitude the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that greatly improved the manuscript. We also thank FIERI for granting access to the data used in this paper and to give the possibility to replicate the survey in Rome. We would like to thank Sapienza University of Rome for funding this research.
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Paparusso, A., Fokkema, T. & Ambrosetti, E. Immigration Policies in Italy: Their Impact on the Lives of First-Generation Moroccan and Egyptian Migrants. Int. Migration & Integration 18, 499–546 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-016-0485-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-016-0485-x