Romanian Italians are people of Romanian descent who reside in Italy. They are a notable presence mostly after 1999, when a very large wave of emigration known in Romania as Fenomenul către UE from Romania took the road to Western Europe (with 80% of the immigrants going to Spain or Italy), and also after 2002, when Romanian citizens obtained the right to leave their country and go to any Schengen Zone country without having a visa requirement. As of December 31, 2006, there were 555,997 Romanian citizens living in Italy, representing 15.1% of all foreign citizens in that country.[1] Unofficial estimates put the actual number of Romanians in Italy at well over one million people.[2]
On November 4, 2007, Italy started deporting Romanians with criminal records, after a wave of violent crime blamed on swelling numbers of immigrants from Romania.[3]
