Jus Sanguinis, Your Right of Blood to Italian Citizenship: Are You Eligible?

When I first heard of the concept of Jus Sanguinis, I was intrigued by the concept of having dual citizenship. I wondered why someone--especially an American--would want this. Were there any downsides? Benefits?

So I looked into it a bit. There are definitely benefits to having an Italian passport:

• Live, work, retire, go to school, and travel freely in 27 European Union (EU) countries
• Reconnect with your cultural background and strengthen the fabric of your heritage
• Travel safer abroad
• Pass on the lifelong gift of Italian Dual Citizenship to other members of your family--One of the most basic reasons why Italian dual citizenship is beneficial is the fact that you get to pass it on to your children (and their children and their children's children in perpetuity) in an unbroken line of Italian citizenship.
• College education is available for Italian citizens in state supported universities for as little as 1500 Euro per semester. As long as Italy is a member of the EU, you can also attend EU universities in other EU countries as well.
  
• Access financial investment rights available only to EU citizens
• For the uninsured or under-insured, healthcare in the U.S. can be expensive. As an Italian citizen, you are entitled to apply for your tessera sanitaria to receive Italian healthcare which is world class and much more affordable when compared to healthcare in the U.S.
  
• Seek health care/drug treatments that may not be available in the United States.
• Access educational benefits, including potentially free higher education
• Leverage tax shelters and benefits
• Benefits when purchasing property in Italy. Having Italian dual citizenship entitles you to much less paperwork and legal hassles when buying or renting property.

According to Italian law, a qualified person can claim their Italian citizenship through Jus Sanguinis, the Right of Blood.   The basic principle is that Italian citizenship is passed from father (or mother, only since 1948) to their children, even if those descendants gained citizenship in another country (such as in the U.S.) simply by being born there.   The key is that the ascendant born in Italy and who immigrated to the US must have been an Italian citizen (i.e. not been naturalized as a US citizen) when his or her child was born.  Italian women did not win the right to pass on citizenship to their children until 1948. Therefore, people born prior to Jan. 1st, 1948, can only claim citizenship from their paternal line, while those born on or after Jan. 1st, 1948, can claim from either their maternal or paternal line.

There are many circumstances under which a descendant of an Italian citizen can qualify, but it might be difficult to provide the dates and many documents to satisfy the Italian regulations.  Many people who have attempted to get their Italian citizenship have reported the process can easily take a couple of years and well over $1000 in fees to research and gain copies of documents, and in hiring a representative in Italy to act on your behalf in obtaining all the required Italian documents.

The Legal Principals

Jus sanguinis is Latin for "the Right of Blood", a legal principle of nationality law in which citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having one or both parents who are (or once were) citizens of the state. Children at birth may automatically be citizens if their parents have (or had previously) state citizenship or national identities of ethnic, cultural or other origins.

The nationality law of Italy bestows citizenship jure sanguinis. There is no limit of generations for the citizenship via blood. However, the first citizens of the modern Italian state were alive on 17 March 1861 when the state was officially formed, and for this reason all claims of Italian citizenship by jure sanguinis must stem from an ancestor who was living after March 16, 1861. Each descendant of the ancestor through whom citizenship is claimed jure sanguinis could pass Italian citizenship to the next generation only if this descendant was entitled to Italian citizenship at the time of the birth of the next person in the line. So if any person in the line lost the Italian citizenship and then had a child, that child did not inherit Italian citizen jure sanguinis, except if the child could inherit the citizenship from the other parent.

Cases of dual citizenship were possible, which is to say, for example, that a person in the line could have had Italian and Canadian citizenship concurrently. Minor children of Italian citizens were at risk of losing Italian citizenship if the child's parent naturalized in another country, unless the child was subject to an exception to this risk—and children born and residing in a country where they held dual citizenship by jus soli were subject to such an exception since 1 July 1912.

Until 1 January 1948, Italian law did not generally permit women to pass on citizenship. Persons born before that date are in most cases not Italian citizens jure sanguinis if their line of descent from an Italian citizen depends on a female at some point before 1948. On several occasions, this limitation of deriving Italian citizenship only from fathers before 1948 has been successfully challenged in court.

For more information:
MyItalianCitizenship.com
Read this case history of how one person succeeded in getting their Italian citizenship.

--Jerry Finzi

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