Immigration as an Economic Necessity?

Why a Utilitarian Model Undermines Integration, Legal Order, and Second-Generation Outcomes

For an American audience, any discussion of European immigration policy requires an initial clarification. ReImmigrazione is not a translated term and should not be confused with slogans such as “mass deportation” or ideological notions of “remigration.” It is a legal-policy paradigm developed within the European constitutional framework to describe a specific outcome: the lawful return of third-country nationals when integration requirements are not met. It operates strictly through individual administrative procedures, due process, and existing legal instruments.

With this clarification in place, a recurring assumption dominates much of the European public debate on immigration: without foreign workers, the economy would collapse. Factories would close, essential services would fail, and entire sectors would become unsustainable. This argument, recently reiterated in Italian media, closely resembles narratives familiar to American audiences, where immigration is often justified primarily on labor-market grounds.

From a legal and institutional perspective, however, this utilitarian approach is deeply problematic.

When immigration is framed mainly as an economic necessity, the legal logic governing residence and permanence is inverted. Presence on national territory becomes legitimate because it is economically useful, rather than because it is legally regulated and integrated into the constitutional order. Market demand begins to substitute legal criteria. Over time, this weakens enforcement, blurs responsibility, and erodes the normative structure of immigration law.

In European legal systems, immigration has never been conceived as a purely economic entitlement. Residence permits, long-term status, and access to rights are formally conditioned on compliance with legal requirements, respect for public order, and progressive integration into the host society. When economic convenience becomes the dominant justification, integration shifts from being a legal condition to a rhetorical objective, often invoked but rarely enforced.

The ReImmigrazione paradigm responds directly to this structural distortion. It does not deny economic contribution, nor does it ignore labor shortages. Instead, it restores a foundational principle of constitutional democracies: permanence within a legal order must be grounded in integration and legality, not utility.

In this framework, integration is not a cultural aspiration or a symbolic value. It is a legally relevant process. Language acquisition, respect for the law, civic conduct, and adherence to institutional rules constitute objective criteria. When this process is absent or fails, continued residence lacks a legal basis. The return to the country of origin, carried out through lawful procedures, is not punitive but the normal consequence of an unfulfilled legal condition.

This distinction is often misunderstood in transatlantic debates. ReImmigrazione does not imply collective expulsions, ethnic selection, or ideological exclusion. It operates exclusively on an individual basis and relies on instruments already present in democratic legal systems: denial or revocation of residence permits, return decisions, voluntary repatriation programs, and judicially reviewable removals. In short, it is rule-of-law enforcement, not ideological policy.

Persisting in an economic-only justification for immigration produces long-term institutional consequences, particularly with respect to second generations. When first-generation migrants are admitted and tolerated primarily because they are “needed” by the economy, without a clearly enforced integration framework, their children grow up within an ambiguous legal and civic environment. Inclusion becomes de facto rather than juridical, while responsibility remains undefined.

The difficulties surrounding second-generation integration are therefore not accidental. They are the predictable outcome of a model that replaces enforceable integration with tolerance and substitutes legal clarity with economic convenience. Over time, this generates social fragmentation and undermines institutional credibility.

For U.S. audiences, the lesson is directly transferable. Immigration systems that rely on economic necessity while neglecting legally enforceable integration standards inevitably produce systemic incoherence. The key issue is not whether immigrants contribute economically. The real question is whether the legal system clearly distinguishes between integration-based permanence and temporary economic tolerance.

ReImmigrazione offers a coherent answer rooted in European legal tradition: integration as the condition for stability, and lawful return as the consequence of its absence. This is not a radical proposal. It is a reaffirmation of legality in migration governance.

Failing to draw this distinction does not prevent failure; it postpones it. And when integration collapses at the second-generation level, the cost is no longer economic. It becomes institutional and constitutional.

Fabio Loscerbo, Attorney at Law
EU Transparency Register – Lobbyist
ID 280782895721-36