A reverse migration across the Atlantic

Business is booming for an entrepreneur who helps Americans secure Italian passports, said Valentina Di Donato and Ben Wedeman in CNN.com. Marco Permunian, founder of Italian Citizenship Assistance, said “requests for his service have increased by up to

400 percent compared with last year.” Italy’s handling of the pandemic since being hit hard this spring—along with universal health care and the right to live and work anywhere in the European Union— appeals to Americans ready to say arrivederci to the U.S. Italy, which has “one of the lowest birth rates in the world,” has been happy to help them make the transition. American descendants of Italian immigrants are eligible to become Italian citizens, but the rules are complex: They can claim Italian citizenship so long as the immigrant ancestor didn’t become naturalized in the U.S. “before the birth of the next person in the line of descent.”