[WalterBlack]

The reason why a lot of people try to get to Italy is because Italy a soft touch when it comes to immigration. Italy rarely deports anybody. The island of Lampedusa is Italian territory, and it’s very close to North Africa.

I know guys from India, who went to Italy illegally over 10 years ago, and are now permanent residents. They said that if the cops catch you, they note your name down and let you go. They do not deport you. Once every 2 years you can register with the local police station and they give you papers which are in essence legal work permits. Once you have those you can work just about anywhere. The people I know who entered Italy illegally are now legal permanent residents and they have even been on holiday to UK!

I haven’t been to Italy in over 10 years, but when I was there I noticed that the guys who sell all the bottled water and souvenirs in Vatican City were Muslim Bangladeshis.

From Ludhiana to Latina

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Immigrant Sikh labour is changing the face of the countryside in Italy, but for many of them it has not been an easy journey

The low-lying hills that punctuate the countryside of Latina in central Italy reverberated with the screams of Harbhajan Singh’s chainsaw. The 41-year-old Sikh attacked the trees that carpeted the hillside like a demon, cutting great bloodless gashes into the trunks. Originally from a village near Kapurthala in Punjab, Harbhajan has spent over 10 years felling trees in the Italian countryside for Trulli Vittorio, a timber company.

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Harbhajan was one of Italy’s immigrant worker elite. Not only had he secured a kosher Italian residence permit during one of the periodic legalisation initiatives Rome undertook every few years, but also had a permanent work contract with his company.

He was paid €65 [USD $70] for an eight-hour day “We’re cheaper than most other immigrants,” he boasted. Even the Romanians and Armenians wanted at least €80 [USD $86]for a day’s work. The illegals amongst the Indians often worked for as little as €3 or 4 [USD$3 to $4]an hour.

Harbhajan and his co-workers, all of whom have lived in Italy for at least a decade, spoke of their work with pride. “Italians don’t like to work too much,” said Sartaj Singh, a clean-shaven Sikh who was working alongside Harbhajan on the day. “They keep going on holiday and make life difficult for the bosses.”

“Before we (Punjabis) got here, the fields were barren,” chipped in Harbhajan. “There was no one to work in the fields. Today if there is agriculture in Latina, it’s all because of us,” he beamed.

This is not an empty boast. Punjabi agricultural immigrants in Italy constitute the second largest Indian diaspora in Europe, after the U.K. Official Italian government figures put the total number of workers from India in Italy at around 121,000. But given the high number of illegals, the real figure is probably closer to 200,000 according to Marco Omizzolo, an Italian sociologist at the University of Florence, who studies the community.

In the Lazio region, an area that includes Latina and the city of Rome, government estimates put the number of Indians at 14,500, but in regions like Lombardia in Italy’s Northwest, this number rises to 46,372. The vast majority of the Indians in the country are Punjabi Sikhs who have immigrated over the last 20 years, and most of them work on vegetable and dairy farms.

Tucked away in the remote Italian countryside, their presence has gone largely unnoticed in Italian society and is only rarely reported in the media. But it is, nonetheless, said by those in the know that were the Indians to go on strike, the country’s production of cheeses like Parmesan and Grana Padano would shut down.

The First Secretary in charge of information at the Indian embassy in Rome claims that Indians are seen as “reliable, enterprising and quite docile”. “They work hard and don’t demand things like some of these others…,” the official leaves the rest of the sentence dangling complicity between us.

Indeed, their “docility” and willingness to work hard while staying out of sight has meant that Italian authorities usually turn a blind eye to the illegal status of many of these workers. Deportations are extremely rare, but the journey into Europe remains fraught with danger.

Gurtej Singh, a hulking 40-year-old dressed in a white turban and gold-rimmed dark glasses, told me about the fraught, overland journey he had made from Punjab to Europe after paying an “agent” in India Rs. 3 lakh. The agent had convinced Gurtej and seven others from his village that the trip would be a cinch. They’d be taken from Delhi to Moscow by plane, before being whisked off straight to Germany in a taxi, they were assured.

The reality proved starkly different. The first leg of the trip was indeed by plane to Moscow, but once in Russia they were kept isolated in a windowless room for over a week with little food and no information. Eventually they were joined by small groups of illegals from Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

They were then taken on foot through the Ukraine and Czech Republic. “Madam, it was winter and there was so much snow, sometimes upto our knees,” Gurtej told me, his voice flat and eyes invisible behind his dark glasses. “There was a man in our group who got frostbite and he collapsed. He couldn’t walk anymore. The agent just left him there to die.”

A bit about the change in immigration law - this article is from 2008 so I'm sure things have changed.

Punjab villagers sad at Italy’s stricter immigration rules

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CHANDIGARH: The residents of Bathan Kallan village, 60 km from here, were saddened when the Italian government declared a nationwide state of emergency last Friday, giving authorities additional powers to tackle the influx and combat “persistent and exceptional” arrival of illegal immigrants. In the last 20 years, over 40 families from Bathan Kallan have migrated to Italy.

“Those who go to Italy illegally have a very tough life, they travel by ships for months and then live hidden lives. If the law becomes more strict, it will become difficult for youngsters to go there,” says 46-year-old Karalta Singh, who migrated to Italy 14 years ago.

Explaining why Punjabis have been migrating to Italy, Karalta Singh said: “It is a lucrative option. The size of landholdings has become very small and no good jobs are available here. That’s why many young boys spent as much as Rs.12 lakh to reach Italy illegally. Once they reach, they look towards fellow Punjabis for shelter as they don’t have any legal documents.”

An agent who organises such illegal migrations said Italy was the safest place because people were not deported easily. “Italy used to give two weeks to an illegal immigrant to leave the country or appeal against it. During this time, they would slip underground. Now they are being ordered to leave within five days during which they would be in Italian custody. The state of emergency, earlier only in the southern provinces of Sicily, Puglia and Calabria, has been extended to the entire country.”

Harcharan Kaur, whose husband had migrated illegally, recalled the difficulties he faced. Initially he had to slog a lot. He recalls the times when he and his friends did not see the sun for four months while hiding from the authorities. They were dependent on some kind-hearted Punjabis who gave them food. Later he started working as a farm worker. Before 1998, the Italian government used to hold amnesties for illegal immigrants; they could apply for Italian citizenship and not get punished for having been there illegally and many people from the village had benefited from these amnesties. “Between 1986 and 1998, the Italian government held four amnesties and granted citizenship to about 700,000 people. That’s when I and my family got citizenship,” says 39-year-old Gurmeet Kaur, who lives in Italy with her husband and four children.

The amnesties attracted more migrants. Consequently the policy was changed and stricter rules enforced.