In Rome, Squatters and Immigrants Gird Themselves Against Expulsion

Papa sat with a friend and fellow squatter, 37-year-old Alessio Rossetti, who said he makes a living as a svuota cantina, taking items being thrown out and selling them, a present-day version of the 19^th century rag-and-bone man who scavenged for a living. Rossetti said he lived in the squat with his wife and several children.

“We have very specific rules,” Rossetti said. “If you are violent, you're out of here. If you treat women the wrong way, you're out. If you deal in drugs, you're out.”

The two Italians got up and led the way through the squat's grounds and into its halls.

The occupation of the school began in 2005 when hundreds of people set up a tent city — a tendopoli — in the parking lot behind the school, Papa said. He said his mother and younger brother were among the original squatters. After months in tents, the squatters took over the old school, which was a shutdown art high school, a liceo artístico.

“Before the building was occupied, it was all overgrown and heroin addicts came here to shoot up,” Papa said as he walked to the back of the building where the tent city once was erected. “It was disgusting.”

A tour of the squat reveals an off-the-grid community where doors to apartments — old classrooms transformed into funky homes — are left open and where a friendly atmosphere prevails as people of different nationalities, and ages, mingle and live together.

Every week, occupants of the school meet to discuss matters relating to the building.

“We decide everything together at assemblies,” Papa said, standing in the meeting room area.

Papa and Rossetti were proud of their squat, which has a garden, a library, a music venue and other communal spaces.

“We're a movement,” Papa said. “But we're the ones under attack the most from the decree.”

The decree he's talking about is a sweeping law passed by Italy's new government last November that targets immigrants and orders police to shut down illegal occupations.

The law, called the Security and Immigration Decree, is routinely called “the Salvini Decree.” It is highly controversial and the subject of intense legal wrangling, with critics calling it unconstitutional and setting up, in the words of one legal expert, a “judicial apartheid” for immigrants.

The decree lays out a nationwide plan to map where illegally occupied buildings are and to use the police to evict people living there. The decree also stiffens penalties for squatters: up to four years in prison. The decree also gives authorities much more leeway in expelling immigrants.

No wonder then that tensions are running high around Rome's squats.

Not too far from the occupied art high school, hundreds of other people — mostly immigrants — are living inside a large multistory glass-windowed former office building on Viale del Caravaggio. Fear of a police raid was palpable. In recent days, authorities have said they plan to evict everyone in the squat.

Outside the building, at least two people were posted as sentries. People came and went from a front gate, carefully locking the gate behind them.

“We don't know where we'll go,” said Julie, a 26-year-old woman from Burkina Faso who lives in the building and who said her immigration status was uncertain. She declined to give her last name. She said she's lived in Italy for 16 years.

“If there isn't an arrangement, we'll end up on the street,” she said, standing next to her 12-year-old brother, Marco. He was born in Italy and attends an Italian school. But unlike in the United States, a person born in Italy cannot automatically claim Italian citizenship, and both face an uncertain future if evicted.

“When he's 18 he'll make a request to become an Italian citizen,” Julie said.

On the streets around the occupied building, locals are of mixed opinions about the push to kick everyone out. Residents and shopkeepers said the immigrants in the building cause no problems, though there are concerns about the building's safety and some would like to see it reopened as an office building.

Before becoming a squat, the environmental department of the regional government of Lazio was housed in the building.

“I want to help everyone,” said Andrea Vaccarotti, a realtor with a nearby office. “The problem is that here in Italy we're struggling. We have economic problems.”

He said the wave of immigration is exacerbating Italy's woes.

“We are in a country where immigration has not been controlled,” he said. “We've not been able to handle it well and now the overwhelming amount of immigration is causing us even more problems.”

(Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.)

Follow @cainburdeau

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