of Italian ancestry. Argentina has the second-largest community of Italians outside of Italy, after Brazil. Jorge Luis Borges stated that "the Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish", while the Spanish philosopher Julián Marías stated that Argentina could be "the only Italian-Spanish republic on the planet". The Italian economist Marcello De Cecco said: "Italians, as we know, are a people of emigrants. For many centuries they have spread to the four corners of the world. However, they constitute the majority of the population in only two countries: Italy and Argentina." There are second and third generation Italian Argentines who hold dual citizenship, recognized by both countries. This is because Argentina uses the ius soli principle, which grants nationality to those born in the country, while Italy uses the ius sanguinis principle, which grants citizenship to the children of Italians. Italians abroad have elected deputies and senators in the Italian Parliament since 2006, when, after a constitutional reform, 12 seats in Chamber of Deputies and six seats in the Senate were assigned to the Italian diaspora. Argentina belongs to the constituency of South America, which corresponds to three deputies and two senators. Reasons for Italian immigration to Argentina If on the one hand the Italians between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century left Italy to escape conditions of widespread poverty, high demographic pressure and heavy taxation, on the other hand in that period the Argentina was a country with a strong need for immigrants: the welcoming commitment, enshrined in the constitution of 1853, found its reasons in a de facto underpopulated country (the Argentine population, a country whose territory comprises 9 times the territory of Italy, in 1850 it was only 1,100,000 units) and eager to populate the large regions conquered in the recent War of the Triple Alliance and with the so-called Conquest of the Desert (Patagonia). Furthermore, a law passed by the Argentine government in 1876 offered the possibility of free land assignments or those payable in installments at very low prices, while in 1882 the government decided to grant twenty-five hectares of land free of charge to all families. In particular, article 25 of the current Argentine constitution states that: Characteristics of Italian immigration to Argentina Overview Areas of origin Contingents of Italian immigrants arrived in Argentina from all regions of Italy, mainly from Northern Italy in the 19th century and mostly