ITALY SHOULD REJECT CRIMINALS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES

The United States wants to deport to Italy a certain Carlos Marcello[1] whose name also appears in criminal records with the aliases Calogero Minacari or Minacore. He was born in Tunis, Tunisia ,[2] on the sixth or tenth of February 1910 and never set foot on Italian soil. He considers himself a French citizen and asked to be deported to France. The French government, however, rejected his claim stating that his French citizenship has never been proven in the United States. Thus, the United States proposed to deport him to Italy. Will Italy be able to resist the pressure? Carlos’s father, Giuseppe Minacore, was born in Ravanusa, in the province of Agrigento, Sicily, in 1892. When he was eight years old his family moved to Tunis. In 1910, at age eighteen, he immigrated to the United States but the same year he returned to Tunis to marry Luigia Feruggia (or Ferruggia), born in Roccamena, Sicily, in 1893. Luigia’s father had moved the family to Tunis when she was nine months old. In October 1910 she gave birth to Carlos and later joined her husband in America, more precisely in New Orleans. She has been living there ever since while her entire family still lives in Tunis and some of her brothers served in the French army.

Carlos Marcello is therefore the son of parents born in Italy who emigrated to Tunisia with their respective families when they were still children. He never even visited Italy and has always lived in Louisiana. Starting in the 1930s Marcello was found guilty of a series of crimes, from armed robbery to trafficking in narcotics. He has also been under investigation for a long list of other crimes for which he could not be tried for lack of witnesses. American federal authorities maintain that he is one of the most powerful and dangerous Mafia bosses in the United States and, therefore, nobody dares testify against him.

Marcello does not have American citizenship. He is legally a foreign resident and, as such, the United States does have the right to expel him. However, there is no proof that it has the right to deport him to Italy. First of all, there is no proof that he has maintained Italian citizenship even in the case that, by mistake, some consular authority might have issued an Italian passport. Moreover, the reason for his expulsion is drug trafficking, an offense that has been added to the statutes by the new McCarran law but was not in existence at the time he committed the crime. Technically, however, the McCarran law is applicable retroactively and can be used to punish people for acts that were not previously considered unlawful.

Researches conducted in Tunisia on Marcello’s nationality have not yielded any results. There is no definitive proof that he is a French citizen, just as there is no proof he is Italian. Moreover, Italy cannot demonstrate that this less-than-desirable individual lost Italian citizenship any more than can the United States demonstrate that he acquired French citizenship. The McCarran law is an American law but it is not part of international law nor is it accepted by Italy. The law gives the American government the power to expel from its territory criminals convicted of certain crimes; however, in order to ship these individuals to another country, it goes without saying that U.S. authorities need the approval of the receiving country (in our case, Italy). The same law also contemplates the possibility that the country of citizenship may reject the deportation order. The law, then, has provisions that list alternative countries where criminals may be deported, such as the country from which the persons last embarked for the United States. For Marcello, the country was Tunisia, at that time a French protectorate. It is also possible to deport a person to other countries that are willing to accept the deportees—with the exception of bordering neighbors Mexico and Canada. Obviously, no country will volunteer to take in a character of the likes of Marcello. Finally, if all this weren’t enough, Marcello does not want to go to Italy! He doesn’t feel Italian. He was educated in French-language schools in Tunisia and graduated from Crime College in America. Why should he go back to elementary school in Italy?

From this point of view, the Marcello case exemplifies one of the aspects that have most affected both Italian and American public opinions from a moral perspective. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, Italy has only received a small number of deportees. However, many of them had a very large resonance in that they were top racketeers, born in Italy or of Italian descent.

After Lucky Luciano, the United States would now like to deport to Italy Joe Adonis; [3] Frank Costello, who is considered the ringleader of Murder, Inc.; Albert Anastasia, the boss of the New York piers; Sam Accardi,[4] who, according to American authorities, is one of the bosses of the international drugs trade; Nicolò Impostato[5] [sic], one of the Kansas City’s bosses; and Nicola Amaruzza, boss of illegal gambling in New Jersey. In addition to these big names there is a whole another list of individuals involved in organized crime. Many have already been sent back to Italy with the consent of the Italian government and with rather dismal results. The deportees have found themselves without means of support in a society they didn’t know, much poorer than America, less favorable in terms of their usual trade and also more resistant to crime, at least in individual terms. They ended up confined to villages or small towns where there is nothing to steal except chickens and where gambling is limited to church tómbola[6] and state-run lotteries. These masters of major operations are starving, like surgeons exiled among the Eskimos. I read somewhere that they wanted to organize a march on the American embassy in Rome to demand financial aid, maybe because the only language they can speak is American. In fact, even though legally they are Italian citizens, in reality they are and remain American. Marcello clearly belongs to this category. Here is, therefore, the perfect opportunity for the Italian government to take an official stand and present the question to the public opinion.

Some argue that these criminals are the product of the American environment, therefore, deportation for crimes they committed in America after they grew up in the American society is equivalent to declaring that they harbor some kind of race-based criminal disposition. I beg to differ. I never shared the horror and scorn cast on Italian criminals in America. In my opinion in many cases these are very remarkable individuals in terms of intelligence, cleverness, political savvy and courage. After being abandoned by their country of origin and being taken in with disdain by a new country, they were able to adapt to the new environment, thrive and achieve excellence. Some even took care of social needs and performed historically useful functions, as during Prohibition. Presently they are doing the same with regard to gambling. Without the support—either willing or unaware—of a large part of American society, they could have never created the kind of powerful organizations that shows how useless and pernicious those laws were and are. Of course, these individuals are violating the laws of the land, therefore they must be prosecuted. But why should we deny that their activities reveal the natural talents of many Italians who, neglected, exploited and oppressed by tyrannical governments for centuries, developed and brought to the new country the great talent of creating a state inside the state?

My point is that here they found the most propitious conditions for their natural genius to blossom and prosper. The fact that these developments are considered criminal by American laws is not the fault of their country of origin: the fault resides with the country that did not know how to take advantage of their intelligence in order to turn them into functionaries, captains of industry or courageous soldiers. These were exceptional individuals who had to find an outlet for their dynamism and found it in crime and criminal organizations. In this sense, yes, they were made by America and America should not send them back to the country of their biological origin, which is not the country of their moral origin.

Italy is under no obligation to accept criminals who are clearly not Italian citizens. Unfortunately, the absence of a treaty between the two countries on this issue has created misunderstandings and confusion for over a hundred years. Italy also has contributed to this confusion with its military draft laws: American-born children of Italian citizens born in Italy who visited Italy with an American passport often discovered they were wanted by Italian carabinieri [7] as military draft dodgers. There remains the fact, however, that the Italian government has no obligation, either domestic or international, to take back Marcello or any other individual of Italian origin whose nationality is uncertain. The Italian constitution,[8] by the way, contains an article that refers to the heirs of the former Italian royal house of Savoy. This article spells out that Italy is under no obligation to readmit all of her citizens, even when their citizenship is not in question. The members of the house of Savoy, in fact, are Italian citizens; however, the constitution bans them from Italian territory.[9]

Some functionaries of the Italian government are clearly worried that the McCarran law may provide an excuse for potential reprisals. If Italy refuses to take back its citizens after they are expelled, the United States may deny entry visas to all Italian citizens. The functionaries that have reluctantly already accepted some undesirable criminal champions are right to argue that they had no choice if they wanted to avoid reprisals. However, they should have also evaluated that the United States would be very careful in applying this kind of sanctions (I am not aware that there have been any such threats.) Moreover, in the Marcello case, Italian authorities should have cited a precedent with France that did not result in the suspension of entry visas for French citizens. According to the 1947 Peace Treaty,[10] Italy enjoys the status of most preferred country concerning immigration. It is therefore clear that the rules that were not applied to France cannot be applied to Italy.

The tone of the relationship between the Italy and the United States is such that problems of this kind should be easily solved without reprisals. The Italian government should find an agreement with the United States and establish some principles concerning the treatment of Italian citizens who were accepted by the United States and grew up there. It is the responsibility of the United States to deal with them. First of all, these people were accepted after going through an extensive screening process that included questionnaires, interviews, documentation etc. Second, they became criminals and a danger to society, instead of model citizens, because of the way they were treated by society, the schools, the streets and the press; and because of the examples they grew up with.

In the past the attitude of the Italian government was too lax for opposite reasons. During Fascism emigrants were encouraged to return to Italy and during the military occupation after Word War II, after the peace treaty was signed, Italy was rather accommodating toward America, which was providing crucial financial aid in the years of reconstruction. This submissive attitude depended on the circumstances of the moment but is no longer sustainable. Many diplomats, members of parliament, ministers and even Italian presidents have visited the United States. Why didn’t anyone bring up the issue and get concrete results? I don’t recall reading anything about this problem in the memoirs of former Ambassador Alberto Tarchiani.[11] Let’s hope we will find something in the future memoirs of Manlio Brosio.

New York, July 8, 1956