ROME – In a landmark legal fight that could reshape citizenship access for millions of people of Italian descent across North America and Latin America, two American families have brought their challenge to a controversial 2024 law before Italy’s highest judicial body, the Court of Cassation, on Tuesday. The statute, enacted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led administration, restricts citizenship by descent claims to descendants no more than two generations removed from their Italian ancestor, a sweeping rollback of pre-existing rules that allowed any applicant with verifiable Italian lineage dating back to the country’s unification in 1861 to pursue citizenship.
The families’ lead attorney, Marco Mellone, argued to the court that the new restrictions should only apply prospectively – meaning claims filed by applicants whose lineage traces back beyond two generations, who began their applications before the law went into effect, should still be eligible for approval. If the court accepts Mellone’s interpretation, it could clear a path to citizenship for millions of people with Italian roots currently residing in the United States and across Latin America.
A ruling from the court’s expanded panel, whose decision will set a binding precedent for all lower Italian courts, is expected within the coming weeks. Though Italy’s Constitutional Court upheld the law’s basic validity last month, Mellone emphasized that the Court of Cassation retains the authority to clarify the statute’s scope and timeline of application.
“The families at the center of this case are just like millions of other Italian descendants across the world: their ancestor emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century, and they are simply asking to exercise the right to citizenship that their lineage guarantees them,” Mellone told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Foreign Ministry data shows the ruling could ultimately clarify citizenship rights for descendants of roughly 14 million Italians who left their home country for the Americas between 1877 and 1914 alone, a mass emigration wave that reshaped the demographic and cultural landscape of the Western Hemisphere.
While only two families are listed as petitioners in the case, more than a dozen other applicants whose claims have been blocked by the 2024 law gathered outside the Rome courthouse Tuesday to demonstrate solidarity with the challenge. Among them was Karen Bonadio, who brought childhood photos and original birth certificates of her great-grandparents, who emigrated from the southern Italian region of Basilicata to upstate New York. Bonadio says she hopes to eventually relocate to Italy, a dream put on hold by the new law.
“The law’s logic claims great-grandchildren like me had no connection to our ancestors, but this photo from 1963 proves that’s wrong – I was just three and a half years old when this was taken with them,” Bonadio said, displaying the faded image to reporters.
Many pre-law claims already caught up in Italy’s slow bureaucratic system have been derailed by the new restrictions, even for applicants who began the process years ago. Jennifer Daly, a retired history professor from Salina, Kansas, has spent nearly a decade navigating Italy’s citizenship bureaucracy. Her grandfather Giuseppe Dallfollo – whose name was anglicized by U.S. immigration officials after he arrived in 1912 from Trento, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – naturalized as a U.S. citizen after marrying an Italian woman and bringing her to the U.S. Daly says her connection to Italy runs far deeper than a legal status.
“I’ve always had a clear Italian identity, and getting citizenship isn’t just a paperwork step for me – it’s a recognition of who I am and where my family comes from. It means everything,” Daly explained in a phone interview.
Alexis Traino, a 34-year-old who already resides in Florence, also joined the protest outside the court. Traino has Italian great-grandparents on both sides of her family, and was in the final stages of gathering required documents from U.S. and Italian authorities when the new law passed, immediately halting her application.
“Growing up, my parents always taught me I was Italian, and I’ve felt a deep connection to this country my whole life,” Traino said. “I already live here, I want to contribute to Italy, and I just want the right to call myself a citizen.”