The family is protected by the Constitution, irrespective of the nationality of its members. In particular, the Constitution recognizes the rights of the family itself, without national qualification, and thus, presumably also families of “foreigners” residing in or otherwise connected to the Italian State, as a natural form of association. It also states the duty of the State to support families also in order to maintain their unity, and especially large families which may have specific problems.

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The family is protected by the Constitution, irrespective of the nationality of its members. In particular, the Constitution recognizes the rights of the family itself, without national qualification, and thus, presumably also families of “foreigners” residing in or otherwise connected to the Italian State, as a natural form of association. It also states the duty of the State to support families also in order to maintain their unity, and especially large families which may have specific problems.

It is against the Constitutional benchmark as well as EU legislation that norms on family reunion need to be considered. 

Law 189/2002 amends the text of Law 40/1998 also in relation to family reunion for non EU citizens. The law has introduced a more restrictive regime compared to law 40/98.

Foreigners are entitled to request family reunion if they have a “stay permit” or a “stay card” linked to their subordinate or non-subordinate work, or for religious motivations, which has a validity of one year or more. S/he can ask reunion with

a) the spouse (with exclusion of legally separated or divorced spouses);

b) children below 18 years of age who are financially dependent on the applicant, including those children who are natural children of the applicant’s spouse or are born out of wedlock, upon condition that the other parent has given his/her consent to the request;

c) children above 18 years of age who can not support themselves due to their health conditions which lead to total invalidity;

d) financially dependent parents, who can reunite with the applicant only if they have no other children in their country of origin or if the latter can not provide for their parents for “well documented health reasons”.

The exclusion of the right to obtain family reunion to relatives up to the third degree of relatedness who are unable to work is one of the novelties of Law 189/2002 with the exceptions of the two categories listed under c) and d) above. Even so, adult children and parents can obtain family reunion only under the strict conditions highlighted above.

The applicant must demonstrate at the time of presentation of the request, that s/he has

a) accommodation which complies with the minimum standards set by regional laws for public residential buildings; obtained the consent of the person who owns or is entitled to the apartment where the child will live, if one of the children for whom reunion is requested is below the age of 14

b) a lawful income whose amount does not fall below the minimum amount for social insurance support (euro 4,557 per year) if family reunion is requested for one relative only; below double such amount if reunion is requested for two or three relatives; below three times such amount if reunion is requested for four or more relatives. In order to assess the income of the applicant, the overall income of the family members who co-habit with the applicant will be taken into account. 

The request , with appropriate documentation is to be presented to the local office of the Territorial Representative of the Central Government (“Prefettura”). After 90 days from the presentation of the request, with a positive response from the Prefettura, or even without a response being given by the authorities (silence is interpreted as consent), the applicant can request visas for the requested family members affected from the diplomatic representation of Italy in the country of origin. Within eight days from entry into the borders of Italy, the family member who has been reunited must request a stay permit for family reasons, which then entitles him/her to work, to attend schools or Universities to access health services (law 189/2002 art. 29).

The new system of quotas for regulation of migratory inflow has to take into account numbers of people who request family reunion. Article 3.4 of the new law states that quotas are stated after taking into account entrance clearance given for reasons of family reunion and temporary humanitarian protection

Analysis provided by: Antonella C. Attardo PhD (History of Law), Italy.

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