Argentina’s President Receives Italian Citizenship, Angering Law’s Critics

When President Javier Milei of Argentina stepped onto the grounds of Giorgia Meloni’s party festival at Rome’s Circus Maximus, a conservative fair that mixed holiday and Italy-First energy, he found a skating rink, a Christmas tree and an upbeat, anti-woke crowd.

But with the visit, he got something more than recordings of Mariah Carey and meetings with Ms. Meloni, the prime minister of Italy and a conservative ally. He also received Italian citizenship.

“More than among friends, I feel like I am with family,” Mr. Milei said onstage at the event.

Mr. Milei, whose grandparents emigrated from Italy to Argentina, received the citizenship because of his bloodline, Italy’s foreign ministry said this week. The announcement sparked some anger among critics of the government in Italy, who have long opposed Italy’s citizenship law for allowing people with distant Italian ancestry to get an Italian passport, but not granting citizenship to children of immigrants born in Italy.

“Granting the Italian citizenship to President Milei is yet another slap in the face to boys and girls who were born here or live here permanently and have been waiting for citizenship for years and years, sometimes without any result,” Riccardo Magi, a liberal opposition lawmaker, wrote on X.

Unlike the United States, Italy does not automatically grant citizenship to children born in its borders, whether or not the child’s parents are in the country legally.

Liberal forces have proposed a referendum to change the law, but Ms. Meloni’s government has resisted alterations that would relax it. Instead, the Italian authorities have recently updated their interpretation of the citizenship law based on decisions by Italy’s supreme court, making it harder to obtain it through bloodlines.