Italy grapples with mass exodus and foreign influx amid economic fears
ROME: The number of Italians leaving their country and foreigners moving in has soared to the highest in a decade, official data showed on Friday, fueling national concerns about brain drain, economic decline, and immigration.
Italy has a right-wing government elected in 2022 on a mandate to curb migrant arrivals, but also has a shrinking population and growing labor shortages, highlighting the need to attract foreign workers.
Meanwhile, the country's stagnant economy and low wages — salaries are below 1990 levels in inflation-adjusted terms — have been blamed for pushing many Italians to seek better fortunes abroad.
Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines, and Tunisians.
Last year, 382,071 foreigners moved to Italy, up from 378,372 in 2023 and the highest since 2014, the statistics agency Istat said.
In the same period, 155,732 Italians emigrated, up from 114,057 in 2023 and also the highest since 2014. The immigration figure beat the previous high for the last decade of 301,000 in 2017, and was well above that period's low of 191,766 from 2020 — the height of the COVID pandemic.
The figure of almost 270,000 nationals emigrating in the two-year period from 2023 to 2024 was up around 40 percent compared to the previous two years.
The two-year immigration figure for that period, around 760,000, was up 31 percent from 2021-2022.
The figures are derived from town registry offices, so are unlikely to reflect undocumented migration.
Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, Istat said, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines, and Tunisians.
As for the high number of emigrants, 'it is more than plausible' that a significant number were 'former immigrants' who moved abroad after acquiring Italian citizenship, Istat said.
The agency also said Italy's poorer south was continuing to depopulate, noting that almost 1 percent of residents in Calabria, the region with the lowest per capita income, moved to central or northern areas during 2023-2024.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
5 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
San Diego Clergy Visit Federal Immigration Court to Bear Witness During Crackdown on Migrants
About a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego area visited federal immigration court Friday to serve as witnesses to what goes down as some cases arising from the Trump administration's migration crackdown are heard, an organizer said. Some migrants have been arrested at the court by federal immigration officers. The Rev. Scott Santarosa, a Jesuit priest who was lead organizer of the group, said the purpose of the visitation 'is more than anything just to provide some sense of presence.' 'People are longing for people of faith to walk with vulnerable migrants,' added Santarosa, the pastor of San Diego's Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. 'Our goal is not trying to prevent arrests – but we can witness it.' The visit was preceded by a Mass at San Diego's Catholic Cathedral with bishops and other clergy – including Bishop Michael Pham, the top-ranking official in the group and one of the first bishops to be appointed by Pope Leo XIV after his election as pontiff – offering prayers for refugees and migrants on World Refugee Day. Pham himself is a refugee; he came to the US unaccompanied as a boy from Vietnam. The idea for the court visit started during a diocese-wide call to plan events for World Refugee Day, in addition to each church holding a Mass to pray for migrants and refugees, Santarosa said. The priest said he hopes that visiting the court helps migrant communities – both more recent arrivals and those without legal status to be in the country who have lived in the San Diego area for decades. 'They're feeling like people just want them to disappear,' Santarosa said, adding that a woman told him in Spanish: 'Father, we feel as if we were hunted, as if we were animals.'
Al Arabiya
6 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
North Carolina Gov. Stein vetoes his first bills. They are on concealed carry and immigration
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed his first bills on Friday, blocking for now Republican legislation that would let adults carry concealed handguns without a permit and make state agencies and local sheriffs more active in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Stein, who took office in January, issued his formal exceptions to three measures backed by the GOP-controlled General Assembly presented to him last week. The former attorney general also had the option to sign any of them into law or let them become law if he hadn't acted on the legislation soon. The vetoed measures now return to the legislature, where Republicans are one House seat shy of holding a veto-proof majority. Its leaders will decide whether to attempt overrides as early as next week. Voting so far followed party lines for one of the immigration measures, which in part would direct heads of several state law enforcement agencies like the State Highway Patrol and State Bureau of Investigation to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But one House Democrat ended up voting for the other immigration bill that Stein vetoed. It toughens a 2024 law that required sheriffs to help federal agents seeking criminal defendants. GOP prospects for enacting the permitless concealed gun measure – a longtime aspiration for gun-rights advocates – appear dimmer because two House Republicans voted against the bill and ten others were absent. In one veto message, Stein said the gun legislation, which would allow eligible people at least 18 years old to carry a concealed handgun, 'makes North Carolinians less safe and undermines responsible gun ownership.' Democratic lawmakers argued the same during the bill's passage through the legislature. Current law requires a concealed weapons holder to be at least 21 to obtain a permit. The person must submit an application to the local sheriff, pass a firearms safety training course, and cannot suffer from a physical or mental infirmity that prevents the safe handling of a handgun. Conservative advocates for the bill say removing the permit requirement would strengthen Second Amendment rights and the safety of law-abiding citizens. Permitless carry is already lawful in twenty-nine states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. North Carolina would also be one of the last states in the Southeast to implement that legislation. One vetoed immigration bill would require four state law enforcement agencies to officially participate in the 287(g) program, which trains officers to interrogate defendants and determine their immigration status. An executive order by President Donald Trump urged his administration to maximize the use of 287(g) agreements. Stein wrote Friday the bill 'takes officers away from existing state duties at a time when law enforcement is already stretched thin.' The measure also would direct state agencies to ensure noncitizens don't access certain state-funded benefits. But Stein said that people without lawful immigration status already can't receive these benefits. The other vetoed bill attempts to expand a 2024 law – enacted over then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto – that directed jails to hold temporarily certain defendants whom ICE believe are in the country illegally, allowing time for immigration agents to pick them up. The vetoed bill would expand the list of crimes that a defendant is charged with that would require the jail administrator to attempt to determine the defendant's legal status. A jail also would have to tell ICE promptly that it is holding someone and essentially extends the time agents have to pick up the person. Stein said Friday while he supports sheriffs contacting federal immigration agents about defendants charged with dangerous crimes, the law 'is unconstitutional because it directs sheriffs to keep defendants behind bars forty-eight hours beyond when they otherwise could be released for a suspected immigration violation.' Latino advocates and other bill opponents had urged Stein to veto both immigration measures, with dozens picketing across the street from the Executive Mansion earlier this week. They say the legislation would cause Hispanic residents to feel intimidated and fear law enforcement.
Arab News
7 hours ago
- Arab News
US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil
NEW YORK: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests. Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday and he will be allowed to return to New York while his deportation case proceeds. 'After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home,' his wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said in a statement. 'We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians,' added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple's first child while her husband was in detention. Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which is among the groups representing Khalil, welcomed the release order. 'This is an important step in vindicating rights as he continues to be unlawfully targeted by the federal government for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights,' Sinha said. 'We're confident he will ultimately prevail in the fight for his freedom.' Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy. Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review. Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records. Farbiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat. The government has also alleged as grounds to detain and deport Khalil that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.
