Growing up near Boston, Liz Fitzgerald’s life was heavily influenced by elements of Italian-American culture.
Every Christmas Eve, her uncle would visit her parents’ house to celebrate the Day of the Seven Fishes with dishes like stuffed shrimp, calamari, and clam chowder, while her aunts would pour batter into steaming trowels and make crispy, waffle-like Italian cookies called pizeres. Her father’s gift was always ricotta pie from a local Italian bakery.
The family’s Italian roots trace back to Fitzgerald’s great-grandfather Angelo. Angelo was born near Naples in 1890 and arrived in the United States in 1909. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1945, a few years after Fitzgerald’s father was born.
A few years ago, Fitzgerald, 53, realized that thanks to him she had a path to Italian citizenship through “right of blood” and began gathering documents to file a lawsuit.
She had gathered all the necessary documents and had them translated, apostilled and ready for submission by late March 2025, when she and thousands of others around the world who were also applying for Italian citizenship were blindsided by a sudden change in the law.
In a surprise decree that took effect immediately on March 28, 2025, the Italian government tightened restrictions on claiming citizenship through jus Sanguinis, limiting it to only those with Italian-born parents or grandparents.
And while the new regulation, known as the Tajani Decree (recast as Law No. 74/2025), did not affect the approximately 60,000 claims pending in consulates and Italian courts at the time, it effectively shut down the door for people like Mr. Fitzgerald.
But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for those who still want to obtain Italian citizenship, despite no longer being eligible under the new regulations. A hearing before the Italian Constitutional Court has been scheduled for March 11, 2026 to determine the constitutionality of the law.
“Many Americans and other Italian residents are currently in a holding pattern, as there is still a possibility that key parts of the decree could be overturned or relaxed when the Constitutional Court hears it in March,” said Pierangelo D’Errico, manager of the London office of immigration firm Fragomen.
“Until the court rules, applicants face real uncertainty about whether they are eligible and how long it will take to process their applications,” he said in an email to CNN.
Christina Scanlan, an internist currently in training in Pennsylvania, was in the process of collecting documents to apply for Italian citizenship through her great-grandmother when Tajani’s order was announced last year. Almost everything was in place, she said, but no lawsuits had yet been filed when the new regulations were lifted.
Ms Scanlan described her reaction to hearing the news that her mother, sister, uncle and two cousins, who had also applied, had been disqualified as “in short, devastated”. She and her husband, who also qualified for Italian citizenship under the old rules, had already discussed the benefits of potentially having Italian passports for their children in the future, and Ms Scanlan had also considered working as a doctor in Italy one day.
After discussing the matter with her lawyer, she and her family decided to proceed with the application, which was filed in Italy in June 2025 and is currently awaiting a court date.
“Ever since I heard this ruling come down, I’ve always held out hope that something might happen because I knew there was going to be some kind of action in court, and it might be ruled unconstitutional,” Scanlan said.
Arturo Grasso, whose Italian firm Mai Law Office is currently representing about 300 clients affected by the changes, said his advice to clients is to “fight for your rights.”
“The government introduced this rule and secured parliamentary approval through a vote of confidence, but lawmakers can still make mistakes,” he told CNN in an email.
“This is precisely why Italy has a Constitutional Court of 15 experts who scrutinize the law every time a judge finds a serious violation of constitutional principles,” Grasso said.
If the court hears arguments challenging aspects of the statute, particularly its provisions that retroactively disqualify descendants of naturalized Italians abroad, the court “could either uphold the law as written or invalidate parts of the law,” said D’Errico, whose many clients are also affected.
A decision on the law’s constitutionality is unlikely to be reached until mid- or late April, but it could be delayed further, it said.
As a result, D’Errico said, “Many prospective applicants, particularly in the United States, are taking a wait-and-see attitude ahead of the court’s decision, given the possibility that eligibility rules may change again.”
Mr. Grasso said that about half of his clients affected by the new law have already challenged it in court “on the grounds that it deprives their descendants of citizenship rightfully acquired at birth.”
“The legal agreement that this constitutes a retroactive deprivation of citizenship is important. It violates the fundamental legal principle that laws that affect fundamental rights such as citizenship, property, and freedom should not be applied retroactively,” Grasso said.
Chris Rini, a dual American-Italian citizen, hopes his wife and her family, who applied for Italian citizenship after the decree, will also be granted Italian citizenship, although not everyone will be eligible under the new law.
Rini, who lives on Long Island, applied for her and her son last year before the ordinance was announced. Both acquired Italian citizenship in September 2025. He said he took the lead in helping his wife’s family apply because they had already completed the process.
Rini said he and his wife hope to eventually buy a house in Italy and spend at least part of the year there. For the past seven months, he has been taking Italian lessons, listening to podcasts, and watching shows to better understand the language.
For all of them, he said, the connection to their Italian heritage is a big driving force.
“I remember the first time I went to Italy. When I got off the plane, I couldn’t explain why, but somehow I felt at home, where I belonged,” Rini said.
Fitzgerald hopes to be recognized after the Constitutional Court hearing, and can relate to her feeling of connection to her homeland, having studied Italian for three years.
Last summer, she and 13 other members of her family from Boston, including 10 descendants of her great-grandfather Angelo, spent time together in Florence. Fitzgerald and his daughter then traveled south to Mirabella Ecrano, a small town outside of Naples where Angelo was born.
She and her daughter both had tattoos written in Fitzgerald’s father’s handwriting, including the zip code where her grandfather, Angelo, lived.
“I’m also planning on getting a second tattoo on my dad’s text, below our zip code, with the date we became citizens. Realizing we don’t know when the actual end date of this whole process will be, I had my dad write down all the numbers from 1 to 10 in case he’s no longer in this world,” she said in an email.
And Fitzgerald continues to believe it will happen.
“I feel Italian. I came this far because I wanted this,” she said. “I’m going to do this and hope for the best.”
Terry Ward, a Florida-based travel writer, lives in Tampa and is awaiting a decision on her Italian citizenship.
