Italy's referendum on citizenship and job protections fails because of low turnout

ROME (AP) — Italy's referendums aimed at relaxing citizenship laws and improving job protections failed on Monday because of low turnout.

But organizers said that it contributed to restarting the public debate in the country over high-stakes issues.

The result was a clear defeat for the center-left opposition and a victory for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her ruling right-wing coalition, which openly supported abstention.

Final data showed that turnout stood at 30.6% of eligible voters after two days of polling, well below the 50% plus one required to make the vote valid.

Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party celebrated the referendum's failure.

“The only real goal of this referendum was to bring down the Meloni government," the party said on social media, posting a picture of the main opposition's leaders. “In the end, it was the Italians who brought you down.”

Maurizio Landini, leader of the CGIL trade union that was behind the initiative, acknowledged the defeat, but stressed it could be a starting point to revive key social battles focusing on workers' rights.

“We knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park,” he said. "There is an obvious crisis of democracy and participation."

Landini noted that more than 14 million Italians cast their ballots in the two-days referendum, with more than 80% voting in favor of the proposed measures aimed at strengthening job protections.

The five proposals wanted to make it easier for immigrants and children born in Italy to foreigners to obtain citizenship — halving the years of residency required to five from 10 — and provide more job protections.

The leader of Italy'a center-left Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, stressed that “more electors voted in these referendums than those who voted for the right in 2022, backing Meloni in government."

Campaigners for the change in the citizenship law said that it would help second-generation Italians born in the country to non- European Union parents better integrate into a culture they already see as theirs.

The new rules, if passed, would have affected about 2.5 million foreign nationals who still struggle to be recognized as citizens.

Activist groups said that the proposed reforms also would have allowed faster access to civil and political rights, such as the right to vote, eligibility for public employment and freedom of movement within the EU.

The referendum on citizenship, however, proved to be more divisive than the others, as only about 65% voted “yes” in support of measures easing the current laws.

Activists and opposition parties denounced the lack of public debate on the measures, accusing the governing coalition of having tried to dampen interest in sensitive issues that directly impact immigrants and workers.

In May, Italy’s AGCOM communications authority filed a complaint against RAI state television and other broadcasters over a lack of adequate and balanced coverage.

Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that only 46% of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums.

“Many believe that the referendum institution should be reviewed in light of the high levels of abstention (that) emerged in recent elections and the turnout threshold should be lowered,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, political analyst and pollster at YouTrend.

Ballot papers are handed over to a citizen, left, to vote on referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Rome, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

Ballot papers are handed over to a citizen, left, to vote on referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Rome, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

A man casts his ballot on referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Rome, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

Leader of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, casts her ballots in referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Rome, Italy, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

A dog on a leash waits as its owner votes in a booth for referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Milan, Italy, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)

A woman casts her ballot in a box for referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Milan, Italy, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)

Ballot papers are prepared on a table for referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Milan, Italy, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)

A woman casts her ballots on referendums on citizenship and job protections, at a polling station in Rome, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Protesters' shadows are cast on the street near law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

An American flag burns outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Two protesters are lit by a police light as they walk outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Protesters are arrested by federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Protesters sit on a barrier that is being assembled outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Protesters stand off against law enforcement outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Protesters chant and march during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, after she was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Protesters confront federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino arrives as protesters gather outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

A protester pours water in their eye after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)