These Americans are clinging to hope for Italian citizenship

By Terry Ward, CNN

(CNN) — Growing up near Boston, elements of Italian-American culture were threaded through much of Liz Fitzgerald’s life.

Every Christmas Eve, her uncle would visit her family’s home to celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes, bringing dishes like stuffed shrimp, calamari and clam chowder, while her aunts poured batter into steaming irons to make the crispy, waffle-like Italian cookies called pizelle. Her father’s contribution was always a ricotta pie from a local Italian bakery.

The family traces their Italian roots to her great-grandfather, Angelo, who was born in 1890 near Naples and arrived in the United States in 1909. He didn’t naturalize as a US citizen until 1945, several years after Fitzgerald’s father was born.

When she realized several years ago that she had a path to Italian citizenship thanks to him through jus sanguinis or “blood right,” Fitzgerald, 53, set about collecting the documents to submit her case.

She had gathered all the necessary documents and had them translated, apostilled and ready to submit by late March 2025 when she — and thousands of other people around the world also in the process of applying for Italian citizenship — were blindsided by a sudden change in the law.

A surprise decree made effective immediately on March 28, 2025, by the Italian government tightened regulations for claiming citizenship through jus sanguinis, limiting it only to people with a parent or grandparent born in Italy.

And while the new regulation, known as the Tajani Decree (converted to Law 74/2025 ), did not affect the applications of roughly 60,000 people that were pending at the time at consulates and in Italian courts, it effectively closed the path for those like Fitzgerald.

But there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon for people who still hope to gain Italian citizenship despite no longer qualifying under the new regulations: A hearing in Italy’s Constitutional Court is set for March 11, 2026, to judge the law’s constitutionality.

“Many Americans and others of Italian descent are in a holding pattern right now, because the Constitutional Court could still reverse or soften key parts of the decree when it hears the case in March,” said Pierangelo D’Errico, a manager in the London office of immigration firm Fragomen.

“Until the Court rules, applicants are facing real uncertainty, both about whether they qualify and about how long applications may take to be processed,” he said in an email to CNN.

‘Devastated’ by the new decree

Kristina Scanlan, a physician currently doing her residency in Pennsylvania, was also in the process of gathering documents to apply for Italian citizenship through her great-great-grandmother when the Tajani Decree was announced last year. While everything was more or less ready to go, she said, the case had not yet been filed when the new regulations dropped.

“Devastated, in a word,” is how Scanlan described her reaction to hearing the news that she and her mother, sister, uncle and two cousins, who were on the same application, were no longer qualified. She and her husband, who also qualified for Italian citizenship under the old rules, had already discussed the benefits of their future kids potentially having Italian passports, and Scanlan had considered one day working in Italy as a physician, too.

After discussing matters with their lawyer, she and her family decided to move forward with their application, which was filed in Italy in June 2025 and is currently awaiting a court date.

“Once I heard this ruling come through I knew that there would be some filings in court, so I’ve always held up hope that something might come of it. And that it might be declared unconstitutional,” Scanlan said.

Arturo Grasso, whose firm My Lawyer in Italy is currently representing roughly 300 clients affected by the change, says his advice to clients is to “fight for their rights.”

“While the government introduced this rule and secured parliamentary confirmation through a voto di fiducia (vote of confidence), lawmakers can make mistakes,” he said via email to CNN.

“This is precisely why Italy has a Constitutional Court composed of 15 experts who scrutinize laws whenever a judge identifies a serious breach of constitutional principles,” Grasso said.

When the court hears arguments challenging aspects of the decree — particularly provisions that retroactively cut off eligibility for descendants of Italians who naturalized abroad — the court could “uphold the law as written or strike down parts of it,” said D’Errico, whose firm also has many clients impacted.

And while a decision on the law’s constitutionality is not likely to be made before the middle or end of April, it’s possible it could be further delayed, he said.

As a result, said D’Errico, “many prospective applicants, particularly in the US, are taking a wait-and-see approach ahead of the Court’s decision, given the possibility that eligibility rules could change again.”

Aspiring citizens applying anyway

Grasso said roughly half of his clients affected by the new law have already filed court challenges against it “on the grounds that it deprives descendants of citizenship they rightfully acquired at birth.”

“There is significant legal consensus that this constitutes a retroactive deprivation of citizenship. This violates the fundamental legal principle that laws affecting basic rights, such as citizenship, property, and liberty should not be applied retroactively,” Grasso said.

That’s what dual American and Italian citizen Kris Rini is hoping is decided for his wife and her family, who applied for Italian citizenship post-decree, despite the fact that not all of them qualify under the new law.

Rini, who lives in Long Island, applied for himself and his son before the decree was announced last year. Both were granted Italian citizenship in September 2025. He took the lead on helping his wife’s family with their application, he said, since he’d been through the process already.

He and his wife hope to eventually buy a house in Italy and spend at least part of the year there, Rini said. For the last seven months, he’s been taking Italian lessons, listening to podcasts and watching shows to get a better grasp on the language.

For all of them, he said, the connection to their Italian heritage is a big driver.

“I remember my first time going to Italy, I kind of got off the plane, and I couldn’t explain why, but I just kind of felt like I was home, like kind of where I belonged,” Rini said.

‘I’ve come so far’

Fitzgerald, who hopes she may still be recognized after the Constitutional Court hearing, has been studying Italian for three years and can relate to feeling a link to the motherland.

Last summer, she and 13 family members from Boston, including 10 who are descendants of her great-grandfather, Angelo, spent time together in Florence. Then Fitzgerald and her daughter traveled south to Mirabella Eclano, a small town outside of Naples where Angelo was from.

She and her daughter had gotten tattoos, written in Fitzgerald’s father’s handwriting, of the zip code where Angelo, his grandfather, had lived.

“We plan to add a second tattoo, the date we become citizens, underneath the zip code, also in his writing. Realizing I don’t know when the actual end date of this whole process will be, I had my dad write out all of the numbers from 1-10 in case he is no longer around,” she said in an email.

And Fitzgerald is keeping the faith that it will happen.

“I feel like I’m Italian and I want this and I’ve come so far,” she said. “I’m going to do this and hope for the best.”

​​Florida-based travel writer Terry Ward lives in Tampa and is awaiting a decision on her Italian citizenship.

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