“Roots Tourism. It’s a beautiful idea, which moves people, but be careful: it can generate a flow that is difficult to manage, in which we are contacted by advisors who often have criminal records and are involved in huge amounts of fraud.”
The alarm comes from Mayor Camillo De Pellegrin, of Zoldo Valley – in the province of Belluno in the Italian region of Veneto – which four years ago found itself in a line of Brazilians in front of the town hall: hundreds of people applying for residency in order to later begin the process of obtaining Italian citizenship. (ius sanguinis).
Up to this point there was nothing strange, except the fact that in that case everything was managed by a Brazilian businessman, who later ended up arrested for drug trafficking, and had his name on the Interpol list in 2021.
“He registered 20 to 30 people as living in an apartment,” says De Pellegrin. We immediately realized that something was not right and blocked it, including making a complaint to the authorities, including the Public Prosecutor's Office.
“Of course, not all of them are criminals”, points out the mayor, “but the newspapers reported several cases”.
Italy launched a €20 million plan this month to encourage so-called “roots tourism” and which seeks to reactivate the sector by helping, especially, cities with less than 50 thousand inhabitants.
Change in the AIRE Law
Val di Zoldo is a municipality with just over 3 thousand inhabitants, which currently has 1.600 members registered in AIRE, the Register of Italians Resident Abroad.
“Let us remember that these people also vote. Our vote is worth as much as a vote from an AIRE voter”, the mayor said to newspaper Il Gazzettino.
According to him, they are “unscrupulous advisors”. “None of this has to do with the roots of Veneto. Those who naively join this project run the risk of exposing themselves to trafficking they cannot imagine,” he warns.
“The coyotes are ready, just look at the first comments.” He refers to the Association of Bellunesi in the World, where in a post on social media a Brazilian, who applauds the initiative, comments: “I have a project to send 3 to 5 thousand people from Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul to Veneto ”.
For the mayor, these are numbers that represent an earthquake for small municipalities of 300 to 400 inhabitants, where people are already struggling to deal with day-to-day administrative difficulties.
He cites the case of Soverzene, a small village with just over 300 inhabitants, for example, and 800 registered with AIRE.
"We must insist on reforming both the AIRE (Registry of Italians Residing Abroad) and Italian citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis)," the mayor concludes.
The article (in Italian) can be read here: “The root tourism? Beautiful initiative, but attentive to the truffe of the Italian cittadinanza".
