‘We did everything they wanted’: The American families caught in Italy’s citizenship crackdown

The dolce vita is a distant dream for those who moved to Italy and got caught in the law change. (Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource)

When Kellen Matwick, his wife Jacqueline and their two children boarded a one-way flight to Italy in August 2024, they toasted their new life.

Matwick, whose great-grandparents emigrated from central Italy to Pennsylvania, is part of the vast Italian diaspora.

He’s also one of the millions who saw his hopes dashed when the Italian government changed its laws around citizenship by descent a year ago, on March 28, 2025 — a move that was reinforced this month when Italy’s constitutional court gave notice that it would reject the first legal argument against the law.

When it introduced the law by emergency decree, the government cited the spiraling numbers of citizens by descent who had never lived in Italy.

But for Matwick, the new law — introduced without warning in March 2025 — hasn’t just dashed his hopes for the future. It has also torpedoed his day-to-day life.

He is one of many members of the diaspora who had moved to Italy to begin the process of reclaiming their citizenship — only to have the rules change before the paperwork was completed.

And with no grace period for those who were already in the country working through initial steps of the process that culminates in an official recognition of citizenship, he has found himself in limbo in Italy — unable to apply for jobs, travel, or access healthcare as he waits for his legal situation to be resolved.

People in Matwick’s situation had two options when the law changed: wait to see what happened, or give up and go home.

But for those who quit their jobs, sold their homes and possessions, and bought one-way flights, going home is not so simple.

One year on from the law change, they’re stranded in Italy — on uncertain legal ground, with uncertain immigration status, and no way to earn a living legally in their current circumstances. All because they followed their dream of returning to the country of their ancestors — in a way that Italy used to allow.

‘It didn’t seem like a risk’

For the Matwicks, moving to Italy was the first step in a new life.

The couple, who had previously lived in New York City, were raising their two kids in Arizona when they decided to emigrate in 2022. They had two options: Spain, where Matwick could get a digital nomad visa as a freelance video editor, or Italy, where he qualified for citizenship by descent via his great-grandparents. The couple both speak Spanish fluently, but decided on Italy because citizenship meant a more certain future.

Rather than claiming citizenship through a US consulate, which typically takes years, they opted to move to Italy and do the paperwork on arrival — a route which has always been allowed for Italo-descendants. That way, they thought, they could integrate their kids (five and two when they left) while they were still young. “It was an incentive to start our lives quicker,” said Jacqueline. “It didn’t seem like a risk — the process has existed for decades.”

Immigrating as an Italian descendant is a lasagna of bureaucratic layers. First, arrivals must find a long-term rental contract, then register with a local authority — a 45-day process. They must acquire a residency permit from the police. Only then can they present their paperwork to the local authorities, who will then “recognize” their citizenship — which, until 2025’s law, was considered as existing from birth. The entire process can take anything from a few months to several years.

One workaround is to move to a small, rural community where the process can be faster. The Matwicks ruled this out, believing it to be an abuse of the system.

“We said, ‘Let’s do it the right way,’” said Kellen. “We treated it like an actual move, chose the city we actually wanted to go to. We said, we’ll get an apartment, have the kids learn Italian, live a real Italian life. We did everything they wanted us to do. Now I feel so stupid — because we did it the right way, we got penalized.”

It took two years to gather the documentation proving Matwick’s descent, and the family arrived in Turin in August 2024. The next day, they emailed the city authorities announcing their presence and intent to claim citizenship.

“It was August, so nobody responded,” said Jacqueline — most businesses in Italy close for the month. “I messaged again in three weeks, and they told us to come in the middle of October.”

But on October 3, the Italian government issued a circular that rendered thousands of Americans ineligible for citizenship. The new rule, dubbed the “minor issue,” said that if a parent of an Italian child born abroad naturalized while their kids were still underage, that would “cut” the line of descent. There was no grace period for those who had already started the process.

Kellen Matwick’s great-grandfather naturalized when his daughter was a toddler. He no longer qualified for citizenship.

The family attended their appointment anyway.

“They told us, ‘You guys were already here, so we think you have a really good chance,’” said Jacqueline, who would have acquired citizenship through marriage once Kellen had been recognized. “But ultimately they rejected us.”

The couple hired a lawyer who suggested they pivot to a court case through Kellen’s great-grandmother, assuring them that they’d be able to stay in Turin and put the kids through school as they waited for their hearing. Women were prevented from passing on Italian citizenship until 1948, but since 2009, thousands have successfully sued the government on civil rights grounds. The Matwicks started gathering the paperwork for Kellen’s great-grandmother.

On March 28, 2025, while they were still collating the required documents, the Italian government introduced an emergency decree limiting citizenship to two generations. It grandfathered in those who had already filed court cases, but for those who were in the process of filing, there was no grace period.

Again, the family had lost their path to citizenship.

“We felt we were constantly hit by waves,” said Jacqueline. “We kept making the logical choice based on the advice we were given in the moment, but each time it turned out to be the wrong choice.”

Stuck in limbo

Nineteen months on from their arrival, the Matwicks are still in Italy. Over the past year since the new law was brought in, they have been given permission to stay, then had it rescinded. Jacqueline has had a third child during this limbo — and although that meant facing an uncertain future while pregnant, it entitled her to a temporary visa, covering her and the kids. It expires next month.

Meanwhile Kellen Matwick has not yet been granted a permit to stay. His legal limbo means that he’s been unable to travel to visit his family in the States — he likely wouldn’t be allowed back into the EU. He’s working as a freelancer, but paying taxes to the US, not Italy as he had planned — because he isn’t a resident. And he doesn’t qualify for healthcare. The family are holding their breath until their court date in January 2027.

“We have kids in school. We shipped all our furniture and had to sign a four-year lease as part of the process. We didn’t have the financial resources to move back immediately. I don’t know what they expect people to do — it seems they didn’t think about the impact,” said Jacqueline.

The couple are trying to raise their kids — who already attend school in Turin — without passing on their stress. School staff and their fellow parents are a source of support, even accompanying them to visa appointments.

“We’re doing all we can to integrate,” said Jacqueline, adding that they love life in Turin. “If we have to move the kids it’ll make me really sad that they have to break off these relationships.”

‘Getting appointments was a nightmare’

The Matwicks aren’t alone in their struggle to navigate Italy’s immigration system. Erica Galbreath had put her South Dakota home up for sale and was mid-purchase of a property in Tuscany, intending to move with her husband and three kids, when the “minor issue” hit.

Like the Matwicks, Galbreath pivoted to a court case through her great-great grandmother (originally she and her dad were applying through his grandfather). Luckily for her, she received the documentation in time to file the case nine days before the surprise law change. Her citizenship was confirmed earlier this year.

In the meantime, she jumped through legal hurdles to move to Italy. She and her husband applied for student visas to study Italian, which enabled them to bring the kids.

“We always planned to move, and I knew getting appointments at the consulates was a nightmare — I spoke to people who tried for seven years,” she said of their leap of faith.

“The kids were 10, seven and five at the time of the move. We wanted to come when they could be fully immersed in the language. They’d have been teenagers if we’d waited for an appointment.”

Galbreath’s pivot was successful, but she says that she knows of at least five families in similar situations to the Matwicks. “They’re stuck in this weird limbo,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking for people who uprooted their entire lives, wanted to be in Italy, to pay taxes, learn the language and contribute, and they’re locked out.”

CNN also spoke to an Italo-descendant who sold all their possessions to move to Italy, arriving two days after the decree. Having finished their savings, they are now living in the country illegally, working cash-in-hand, as they await their court date. CNN is not identifying them, so as not to put them at risk.

‘It left everyone screwed’

While some have stayed, other would-be immigrants have reluctantly gone home. Jackie Wang spent five years trying to get an appointment at Italy’s consulates in Boston and Los Angeles before moving to Turin after a friend successfully claimed her citizenship in the city.

A poet and academic, she signed a four-year rental contract, as required by the authorities, and arrived on October 1, 2024. Two days later, the “minor issue” hit. “It was the worst possible timing,” she said.

Wang — who speaks Italian at a B2, or upper intermediate level, and has four great-grandparents from Sicily — had already made an appointment to recognize her citizenship, so hoped she might be treated as a case in progress.

“He wouldn’t even take my documents,” she said. “He said, ‘Why did you even come here?’ But I’d moved before the law changed. I didn’t know this was going to happen.

“I started crying in the office. I’d uprooted my life. I had a lease and bills. I’d prepaid for Italian classes. He said, ‘Oh well, since you don’t have a family it’ll be easier for you to go back to the US.”

But Wang had nowhere to return to — she’d ended her US rental contract and had already accepted a job as a visiting scholar at the University of Turin. She went back to the US, staying at a friend’s apartment while she applied for a research visa, before returning to Turin. In the meantime, she, too, pivoted to a court case, but the generational limit hit before she could collate the documents. In December 2025 her visa expired, and she had to return home.

“I was totally traumatized by this experience,” she said, describing the sudden changes as “whiplash.”

Wang is now assistant professor of literary arts at Brown University, but still dreams of a life in Italy. She is even still paying her Turin rent. “I wanted to live there part-time, and eventually settle full-time,” she said. “If anything changes, I still want to do it. Turin has an amazing literary history, I fell in love with the city.” She hopes to buy an apartment there.

“I was very committed to having a life in Italy,” she adds. “That’s what’s frustrating about the way the rules were written. There’s a way to account for allowing people who want to create a connection to stay — maybe a time-limited residency. If they were afraid people were just trying to get an EU passport, why not write the law to account for that? What was shocking was there was no phase-in period. It left everyone who’d moved to Italy screwed.”

‘No home, no job, no car’

Lea Black is also keeping the dream alive. She was raised in Connecticut by her late grandfather, whose parents were from Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily. Partly to honor him, and partly to connect with her roots, she booked a one-way ticket to Italy in February 2025.

Now, she’s lodging with a friend in Atlanta, licking her wounds and looking for a new job, after giving up everything to follow her Italian dream.

“I’m back in the US with no home, no job, no car, no furniture. And it’s because I did exactly what they told me to do,” she said.

Black, who had tried for three years to get an appointment at Italy’s Miami consulate to have her citizenship recognized, quit her job in sales, ended her lease, and sold her possessions to move.

“My grandfather used to talk about Sicily with such happiness, and I didn’t realize until I was in Cattolica Eraclea how deep it would touch me,” she said.

“I saw a street sign with my grandfather’s last name on it, stopped to take a photo and met my first friend. The Sicilians embraced me in such a way that I felt my grandfather was guiding me.”

Black arrived on March 8, with her documents in order — unlike the others, she wasn’t affected by October’s ruling as her line wasn’t affected by the “minor issue.” She made an appointment for April 4 to get an Italian social security number — something which she had requested from the consulate three months before the move. But on March 28, the generational limits torpedoed her dreams.

“I felt like a horse kicked me in the chest,” she said. “I was looking at my suitcases, thinking, ‘Holy sh*t.’ This road is just riddled with landmines — whichever way you turn, you’re screwed.”

She’d put aside enough money for her first year in Italy, planning to ramp up her side hustle to a full-time gig. Instead, she used her savings to file a lawsuit. But after 90 days — the maximum time a non-EU citizen can spend in the EU without a visa — she was no further forward.

Stalling for time, she moved to Albania, which is outside the EU. After three months there, she returned to Italy. After another 90 days, she flew to Pennsylvania, where she had a job offer — but it promptly fell through.

Staying with a friend, Black’s remaining possessions fit in four suitcases; she has no health insurance, and is still job-hunting. “If it wasn’t for the kindness of my friends I don’t know what I’d do,” she said. “The last year has been so draining. I feel very alone.”

Black’s court case was heard in March but she has yet to learn the outcome. “I’m holding on for dear life,” she said.

Black also qualifies for Polish citizenship through the other side of her family, but said that it was always Italy that she wanted. So far, she says she’s spent over US$20,000 following her dreams.

Hopes are fading

Italy’s Interior Ministry, which is responsible for immigration and citizenship, declined a request for comment on the issues raised by CNN’s interviewees. When introducing the law in 2025, foreign minister Antonio Tajani said: “Being an Italian citizen is a serious matter, the granting of citizenship is a serious matter. Unfortunately over the years there have been abuses and requests for citizenship that went a bit beyond the true interest in our country.”

The country’s citizenship laws have long been controversial. While the diaspora has enjoyed ius sanguinis, or citizenship by descent, it is less popular in Italy itself, where it is often seen as an easy route to a coveted EU passport, without generational limits (as long as nobody lost citizenship, including by naturalization) and without the need for linguistic or cultural ties. By comparison, children born in Italy to immigrant parents cannot apply for citizenship until they are 18 (earlier if their parents naturalize), often leaving young people who have been born, raised and schooled as Italians, foreigners. Black calls this “insane”; Wang “can’t even imagine” what it’s like.

“We’re fully aware we don’t have the hardest immigrant story,” said Jacqueline Matwick. “I don’t want to seem tone deaf. We’re safe. We won’t get picked up outside our kids’ school and put in a detention center.”

And yet, their lives have all been upended.

All say that if Italy were to introduce a residency requirement for the diaspora to have their citizenship recognized, they would leap at the chance.

“If they said ‘Live here for two years first,’ I’d be on the next plane over,” said Black. “I wanted to live here forever.”

They hang on in the hope that the upcoming hearings about the generational limits at the Constitutional Court, and an April hearing about the “minor issue” at the Corte di Cassazione, Italy’s supreme court, might bring better news. Marco Mellone, one of the lawyers involved in the latter, has already told CNN that he hopes to address the generational limits during proceedings.

In the meantime, those stuck in limbo take things day by day. “Every time we have a glimmer of hope it gets shot down,” said Jacqueline Matwick. “I feel like I’m in the ocean and the waves keep coming.”

Julia Buckley, CNN