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Photo by Carlos de Toro @carlosdetoro on Unsplash
MILAN — After a long flight from Seattle with their newborn son crying in their laps, an Italian couple gathered their infant’s American birth certificate from the overhead compartment, got his American passport stamped and found friends and neighbors cheering with celebratory balloons outside their Milan apartment.
But the Italian state was less welcoming to Davide Fassi, 49; his longtime partner, Davide Chiappa, 44; and their son, Martino Libero Fassi Chiappa, who was born through surrogacy by an American woman.
In the days before they returned to Italy last month, the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered municipalities to obey a court ruling made in December and stop certifying foreign birth certificates of children born to Italian same-sex couples through surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy.
The decision has left Martino Libero and several other children suspended in a legal limbo, depriving them of automatic Italian citizenship and residency rights like access to the country’s free health care system and nursery school.
“He’s a tourist now, an immigrant,” said Mr. Fassi...