HUN 111501NP01ROME – Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has taken a hard-line stance against migrants, stirred a new controversy and rebuke by turning his sights on Italy's nomadic Roma community.

Salvini said this week he would order government officials to conduct a census of the Roma population and deport any whose documentation is not in order. We must know “who they are, where they live, and how many of them there are,” he said.

Salvini, head of the nationalist League party that helped form the new government, has vowed to expel as many as a half-million migrant residents in Italy. He also sparked a recent multinational showdown by refusing to let a rescue ship carrying more than 600 migrants from docking in Italian waters. The shipped docked Sunday in Spain.

At least 150,000 Roma, sometimes called gypsies, live in Italy, with roots reaching back to the 14th century. They speak their own languages, have their own cultural traditions and rarely integrate into Italian society. Many families have been in the country for generations, but they are not on government rolls. Less than half of the Roma have Italian citizenship, according to most estimates.

Roma who have the correct paperwork, "unfortunately, well, you have to keep them," Salvini said. Italy would deport the rest, he said, though it was unclear where they could go.

Salvini’s remarks drew fire from Birgit Van Hout, the European representative for the United Nations Human Rights Office, who said the policy was “unacceptable” and an effort to “stigmatize” the Roma.

Opposition members of Parliament slammed the census proposal as "racist" and "fascist."

"If we really want to carry out the census, I would start with the census of racists and fascists. To better avoid them," tweeted Democratic Party leader Matteo Orfini.

Also criticizing the plan was former Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who was the head of Italy's government until June 1, when Giuseppe Conte took over. “Yesterday the refugees, today the Roma,” Gentiloni said on Twitter. “How tiring it is to be wicked.”

Even Labor Minister Luigi Di Maio, head of the 5-Star Movement allied with the League party, called Salvini’s order “unconstitutional.” He noted that a previous government tried a similar move a decade ago until it was struck down in court.

Italy’s Union of Jewish Communities said Salvini recalls the country’s fascist race laws that led to Italy's involvement in the Holocaust starting in the 1920s and through World War II.

Popular sentiment may be behind Salvini's latest moves. Maria Rossi, co-director of the polling firm Opinioni, said polls regularly show between 70 and 90 percent of Italians have a negative view of the Roma.

“The Roma are identified with petty crime, poverty, and anti-social behavior,” Rossi said. “That makes it easier to attack them without offending as many people.”

Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, a former diplomat and now president of Italy’s Institute for Foreign Affairs, said Salvini’s views work because they are popular with some Italians and don’t cost a lot of money.

“He can say things that may have repercussions in the social fabric of the country, but they do not require a big budget,” he said.

Salvini’s tough stance against migrants prompted fierce debates among rank-and-file Italians, but the response so far has been more accepting regarding the Roma.

“There’s no room for everyone to live in Italy,” said Fillippo Di Marco, 35, a dentist trainee who voted for the 5-Star Movement in the March election. “We have to draw a line, and excluding people who aren’t really Italian makes sense to me.”

Visiting foreigners were more critical. Richard Elgar, 52, an administrator at Washington State University on vacation in Rome, compared Salvini’s comments to President Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about illegal Mexicans in the United States.

“It looks like Italy is having a Trump moment,” Elgar said.

Photo: Roma community in Tatárszentgyörgy, central Hungary.
Credit: Nikos Pilos/ ARA Network Inc. (01/15/11)

Story/photo published date: 06/19/18

A version of this story was published in USA Today.
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