Italy turns down plan to tax immigrants

The New York Times
Published: Thursday, January 1, 2009

ROME — The conservative government of Italy backed away Saturday from a right-wing ally's plan to impose a tax on immigrants seeking residence permits after critics attacked the proposal as racist.

The anti-immigrant Northern League, a junior ally in the Italian government, on Friday proposed a change to the law that would make immigrants pay a €50, or $67, tax to obtain residence permits and provide a €10,000 bank guarantee to start a business.

Leftist lawmakers decried the move as discriminatory, and on Saturday a government representative from a lower house panel where the amendment was presented blocked the proposal.

The plan had been widely criticized.

"This is a hateful and deeply wrong measure," said Marco Minniti, a legislator from the opposition Democratic Party.

"It continues to make integration more difficult, and pushes legal immigrants with a house and a job towards illegal means," he said.

Immigrants must already wait more than two years and clear various bureaucratic hurdles to obtain an Italian residence permit, said another Democratic Party lawmaker, Livia Turco.

Immigrants currently pay roughly €72 in postage and other fees to obtain or renew the so-called "permesso di soggiorno" that allows foreigners to live and work in Italy.

Fatima Talhi, a Moroccan immigrant who owns a kebab shop in Turin, denounced the proposed changes.

"If they had asked me for a €10,000 guarantee I could never have started this business," she told La Stampa newspaper, adding that she could buy a house in Casablanca for that amount.

Trying to put a lid on the controversy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the government had opposed the proposal from the start and denied it had flip-flopped on the issue.

But the League said it would press ahead with its initiative, even if it was "amazed" by the reaction of some of its colleagues in the government.

Immigration has been high on the political agenda since Berlusconi came to power last year vowing a crackdown on illegal migrants. But critics accuse his government's policies of stoking fear and fomenting a climate of xenophobia.