Italian Government recently announced additional emergency austerity measures to fend off a sovereign debt crisis. The austerity measures which are currently being debated in Parliament, have provoked a tug-of-war between government and opposition MPs.
As controversial as it may appear, we think the politicians are ignoring a very important measure which may steer Italy out of crisis, that is, regularising illegal immigrant workers.
A recent research by Ismu shows that there are more than 500,000 immigrants working in the country illegally, and all of them are keen on being regularized so that they can live a normal and dignified life.
In 2009 when the government allowed domestic workers to be regularized the employers had to pay a lump sum amount of 500 Euros for each worker to be regularized. This means that by deciding to regularise these 500,000 illegal immigrants, the State would immediately cash in 250 million Euros.
And that’s not all. Another research by Ismu has revealed that each regular immigrant worker pays about 6,000 Euros in taxes and contributions every year. The State would therefore cash in 3 Billion Euros each year by simply allowing these half a million people to be regularized.
Such a decision would be an important step towards integration of immigrants in Italy, says Mr. Gianluca Luciano, the Managing Director of Stranieri in Italia, the publisher of Africa News. He says that regularizing all these immigrants who live and work in Italy would allow them to continue contributing to the wellbeing of their new country.
We hope Italian politicians may seriously consider this proposal.
By Stephen Ogongo Ongong’a
