At the end of the 70s Italy, which had been previously principally an emigration country, began experiencing growing international immigration pressures. Public and administrative interest to this new phenomenon was however very limited for quite a long period. The principal reactions to the increasing migration inflow, mostly irregular, were four amnesties (1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995) and some legislative regulations that resulted to be rather ineffective.
Only in 1998 it was produced the first comprehensive law on the immigration issue, based on three key elements:

1. Limited annual quotas of admissions for employment purpose
2. fight against illegal immigration,
3. integration of international migrants legally staying in the territory through “citizenship pathways”

Some of these principles were extended to the following Law, approved by the right-wing government in 2002 and still in force, which however introduced strong restrictions to admission and settling policies, to the point that in 2004 a Constitutional Court’s sentence declared part of it illegitimate.
Here below, a short overview on how international labour migrants inflows are actually managed

Determination of inflow quotas
Each year a decree by the Prime Minister sets the maximum number of third country nationals admittable in Italy for subordinate employment, subdividing them into seasonal and permanent workers.
Different quotas are allocated depending on migrants’ country of origin and destination region in Italy.
In order to apply for entrance in Italy, would-be migrants must previously sign a so called “permanence contract” (practically a real job contract) with their Italian would-be employer who must guarantee to effectively employ the migrant once arrived, certificate the availability of adequate housing for him/her and undertake to pay repatriation costs if needed. The match between demand and offer is thus supposed to take place outside Italian territory and before the migrant’s entry. Practically, until now this mechanism has demonstrated to be quite inefficient, both for the above mentioned bureaucratic complications that make it very difficult the meeting between offer and demand, and for the evident insufficiency of admitted quotas in respect to the real needs of both the employment market and migration pressures (in 2006, with a set quota of 175,000, the total amount of applications exceeded the 480,000). As a result, there is always a consistent number of foreigners who try to enter the country illegally.

Fight against clandestine immigration
The intensification of measures for reducing massive immigration has become a priority for Italian Government.
The above mentioned quotas system is used also as an instrument to make political pressures on countries of origin and obtain their collaboration in fighting illegal migrations. In fact, highest entry quotas are reserved for workers of those countries that subscribe readmission agreements and actively collaborate in preventing emigration towards Italy. Similarly, quotas are drastically cut down for those countries that do not offer adequate collaboration.
Part of the public opinion strongly criticize such kind of pressures, since frequently are made on countries where it can be difficult to control how democratic really are the measures adopted to respect the commitment undertaken.
Undocumented migrants caught within the Italian territory, whether an immediate identification and expulsion is not feasible, can be interned for up to 60 days in a Temporary Permanence Centre (CPT). However this is a quite contested practice, since on the one hand it deprives from personal freedom, even if temporarily, people who only committed an administrative transgression (and thus, by low, not punishable with imprisonment) and, on the other, because the capacity of the existing “reception” facilities is much lower than the number of migrants they usually host (for example, the number of migrants interned at the CPT of Lampedusa in Sicily between April and September amount to 340-400 units, with peaks of 1000, while the maximum capacity is limited to 186)

“citizenship pathways” for migrants legally living in the Italian territory
 The migration Law provides a multi-stage process for obtaining an unlimited permit of residence in the country:

1. Permanence permit: it can be valid for 9, 12 or 24 months, depending on the type of employment contract subscribed by the migrant worker (seasonal, with fixed term or of unlimited duration). It can be renewed if the conditions under which the permit was issued still persist. If migrants loose their job, they are supposed to leave immediately the country.
2. Long term residence permit: Foreigners regularly residing in Italian territory for at least six uninterrupted years, when having a permanence permit for a reason which justify an indeterminated number of renewal (e.g unlimited duration job contract) and sufficient means of sustenance for themselves and their household members, can apply for long term residence permit for themselves, their spouse and their underage children. This residence permit has unlimited duration.
3. Naturalization: foreigners can apply for it after 10 years of regular residence. Italian nationality is issued with a decree of the President of the Republic after consultation with the National Council solicited by the Minister of the Interior.