Italy’s highest court has ruled that children born with both Italian and another citizenship do not automatically lose their Italian citizenship if a parent naturalizes abroadFILE - Lawyer Marco Mellone speaks during an interview outside Italy's highest Court of Cassation, in Rome, April 14, 2026, prior to the start of a hearing to argue against the new citizenship law that restricts citizenship by descent. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)ROME -- ROME (AP) — Italy’s highest court has ruled that children born with Italian citizenship do not automatically lose it when a parent later becomes a citizen of another country, a decision expected to bolster citizenship-by-descent claims by descendants of Italian emigrants worldwide. At the center of the dispute was whether children automatically lost Italian citizenship when an Italian parent later acquired a foreign nationality while the children were still minors. The court clarified that children born in countries that automatically grant citizenship at birth — including the United States — retained their Italian citizenship even if their parents later naturalized there. The ruling comes as Italy faces growing demand for citizenship by descent and legal disputes over the scope of ancestry-based citizenship rights.