Migrant Rights

Degree course: 
Academic year when starting the degree: 
2017/2018
Year: 
2
Academic year in which the course will be held: 
2018/2019
Credits: 
8
Period: 
Second semester
Standard lectures hours: 
50
Requirements: 

The minimum requirement is a knowledge of the key elements of public law. However, if necessary, such general concepts will be briefly revised during course lectures.

Final Examination: 
Orale

The course is assessed through a final oral examination. Attending students only will be given the opportunity throughout the course to take progress tests on the topics covered during the lectures. If a pass mark is achieved, such topics will no longer be subject to further assessment in the oral examination.

Assessment: 
Voto Finale

As a part of the Linguistic, Cultural and Legal Mediation programme, the course is designed to introduce students, with a mostly practical approach, to the legal status of foreign citizens through the analysis of the current national and supranational regulatory framework, in particular with regard to migration policies and flows, entry and stay conditions for foreign nationals in Italy and the recognition and respect of the rights and duties of migrants.
Moreover, the course aims to focus on some specific tools, thanks to which, after satisfying the migrants’ basic needs, it is possible to achieve integration and medium and long-term social inclusion policies.
The course will follow an interdisciplinary approach, studying the subject matter from a constitutional perspective, as well as from the point of view of EU and administrative law, with the opportunity to group lectures into distinct but closely related blocks and to rotate the teaching activity of the lecturers, in order to provide a consistent course programme.
By the end of the course students will have to master the basics of migration law, in all its sides, and will have to be able to apply such knowledge by carrying out activities as regards the inclusion and social integration of foreigners, as well as the emergency management resulting from non-EU immigration.

The lectures will cover the following topics:

Constitutional and European Law Module

1. Foreigners, migrants and Italian citizens: the historical evolution of immigration law under constitutional, EU and international rules.
2. The current Italian citizenship law and reform proposals.
3. The European citizenship; the right to asylum, the refugee and stateless status; the conditions for the international and EU protection of foreigners.
4. The non-EU immigration policies and the provisions regulation the status of foreigners staying in Italy; Identification and Expulsion Centres; the fundamental rights and duties of the non-EU nationals; in particular family unity protection, family reunification and access to social rights (education, health care, accommodation) under Italian national and regional law. The Directive on the right to family reunification.
5. The legal status of foreign citizens in the EU: in particular the EU freedom movement and residence and the access to local political rights. The Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life. The prohibition of discrimination on ethnic, national and religious grounds.
6. Policies on the integration of the new minorities in the Italian society: from the satisfaction of the basic migrant needs to the so-called “government of the differences”.

Administrative Law Module

7. Continues on the legal status of foreigners who are EU citizens (right of entry, freedom of movement and establishment; entry, stay and residence; the stay permits: right of residence, right of permanent residence, residence card issued to non-EU family members cohabiting with Italian or EU citizens; expulsion and judicial guarantees).
8. Continues on the legal status of non-EU foreign citizens. The general entry conditions for non-EU citizens (general requirements, entry visas, rejections, border controls, criminal laws).
9. Stay conditions for non-EU citizens (different stay permits, declaration of residence for short stays of less than 3 months for tourism, study and visiting purposes; issue, renewal, conversion and revocation of residence permits and their types; issue and revocation of EC residence permits for long-term residents; registration). The entry and stay conditions for non-EU citizens for specific purposes: employment, self-employment, family reasons, study.
10. The right to family unity of non-EU citizens: the procedures for family reunification, residence permits for family reasons, the legal status of foreign children.
11. Removal orders for non-EU citizens from the national territory (refoulement measures; judicial and administrative expulsions and their criminal and administrative effects; prohibitions of refoulement or expulsion; expulsions and detention; judicial petitions). The permanent regularization and stay permit for social reasons.
12. The discipline of public services granted to EU and non-EU citizens: right to health care, right to housing, right to education. Tax and fiscal obligations of foreigners who are resident or domiciled in Italy.

The textbooks required for the final exam will be communicated to students during lectures.
Other supplementary materials (articles, essays, reports, as well as Italian, foreign and supranational case law) will be made available on the e-learning platform.
The textbooks for non-attending students will be listed on the e-learning platform.

The course consists of 50 hours of lectures which are divided, as indicated above, into two modules. Teaching will be provided by the two lecturers of the course.
Furthermore, some experts working in the migration-related field, and thus tackling and solving specific issues related to non-EU migration, will share their experience during the lectures (for example, Police Headquarters officers, associations working directly with migrants, migration counselling centres, intercultural mediators).

Lecturers’ office hours are posted on the Notice Board page of the Department’s website. Both lecturers are available at any time to address individual student questions at:
lino.panzeri@uninsubria.it
carmela.leone@uninsubria.it