Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants stood in line outside Italian post offices on Tuesday morning, waiting to file applications for legal status. In some northern cities queues started to form at the weekend, or even Friday, as immigrants equipped with sleeping bags and food tried to ensure they were among the first to hand over their papers on Tuesday.
Under immigration legislation passed by the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy is to allow 170,000 immigrants into the country in 2006 if they have jobs. About 600,000 applications are expected and the places are to be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis, with designated post offices opening their doors at 14.30.
Each application will be stamped with the exact time it was received, thanks to an electronic clock system into which all the receiving post offices are plugged. Predictably, as the crucial moment approached, tension in the long lines grew and occasional scuffles broke out. Police were deployed in many cities to make sure the queues remained orderly.
In Savona, a 35-year-old Romanian woman suffered a heart attack after waiting for several hours and had to be taken to hospital.
During the cold night between Monday and Tuesday, civil protection officials did the rounds of post offices, handing out blankets and cups of hot tea.
Politicians in the centre-left opposition attacked the government for thinking up a system which produced a "spectacle of queues night and day, which is pitiful and disturbing to say the least". But the Northern League party, which played a key role in devising the current immigration rules, dismissed the criticism.
"I've had to queue up all night to sign up for an exam at university and every day people queue for medical tests they then have to wait months to have," said Roberto Calderoli, who resigned from the cabinet last month. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, another League member, said the immigration law co-authored by his party's leader Umberto Bossi had been applied too haphazardly, allowing too much leeway to illegal immigrants.
"Now we have the paradox of seeing illegals queuing up at the post office," he said.
According to the rules, people wishing to work in Italy should apply from their country of residence and it should be their prospective employer to go to the post office with the application form. According to ARCI, a left-leaning association often
involved in charity, almost all the people queuing at post offices were foreigners. Most were babysitters and home-helps, it said.
The interior ministry printed about 1.8 million copies of the forms which immigrants and their employers must complete to apply for legal status. The application papers were snapped up immediately and, according to newspapers, they have been touted to desperate immigrants for as much as 200 euros.
