Grasso calls for new immigration law for Italy

(ANSA) - Rome, March 26 - Senate President Piero Grasso said Wednesday that it is time Italy creates a new immigration law to better integrate newcomers, and generations born to immigrant parents.
    "It's time to think about a new path to citizenship for foreigners who have been integrated here, and second generations," born to immigrant parents, he said after the release of a report on immigration from the International Centre for Family Studies. "Our rules on citizenship are among the most stringent in Europe and are likely to excluded from rights (of citizenship) thousands of people who with their honest work contribute to the welfare and progress of our society," he added.
    "I think young people born in our country, studying here, speaking our language and our dialect, cheering or playing in our football teams...I have always wondered bitterly why these young people are fighting for justice and for the future of a country of which they are not and will never be citizens".
    Children of immigrants, even when born in Italy, are not automatically granted citizenship under the current law.
    Italy's former minister for integration Cecile Kyenge pressed hard for changes to Italy's 2002 Bossi-Fini immigration law, which was ratified under a previous center-right administration in which the anti-immigrant Northern League was a minority coalition partner.