Topic analysis

After Meloni’s law change, Americans hope Italian supreme court ruling will open door to citizenship

US citizens like Sabrina Crawford and Jennifer Daley, who spent years navigating bureaucratic hurdles to pursue Italian citizenship via ancestral descent, had their plans disrupted by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government’s 2025 law restricting eligibility to those with a parent or grandparent who was an Italian citizen at birth (and did not take dual nationality). These applicants are now waiting for Italy’s supreme court to rule on a legal challenge arguing the law should not apply retroactively, after the country’s constitutional court previously upheld its validity.