Friend of my dad's moved to Italy, learned to speak the language fluently and spent every day of his 20 years or so there working hard and being an upstanding citizen. He started a family there, but because he missed some paperwork early on, his kids never became Italians and neither did he or his wife.
So yeah his kids were born in Italy, all grew up in Italy, speak Italian fluently (natively), went to school there etc, but eventually they all moved away as they don't have citizenship. They're now mostly in the US. They run businesses and all have advanced degrees.
My dad spoke with him a few times about getting citizenship but it'd be a very long process. They've essentially committed to a life elsewhere.
In other words, there seems to be absolutely no reason for them not to be Italians, other than some kafkaesque messed up bureaucracy that servers no actual purpose.
This kind of describes immigration bureaucracy anywhere and everywhere.
Here's Linus Torvalds on some of the hassles he had: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3655 (search for green card). That's the kind of person you should be laying out the red carpet for.
So yeah his kids were born in Italy, all grew up in Italy, speak Italian fluently (natively), went to school there etc, but eventually they all moved away as they don't have citizenship. They're now mostly in the US. They run businesses and all have advanced degrees.
My dad spoke with him a few times about getting citizenship but it'd be a very long process. They've essentially committed to a life elsewhere.
In other words, there seems to be absolutely no reason for them not to be Italians, other than some kafkaesque messed up bureaucracy that servers no actual purpose.