How long a wait? Boston

[bmilazzo]

It has been almost four months since I submitted all my documents. How long before I receive notification that my documents have been registered in Italy? I submitted them to the Boston Consulate.

[johnnyonthespot]

There is really no way to say with certainty.

It does appear that to some extent the processing time is impacted by the number of documents which origanted outside your local consulate's jurisdiction. Much has been made of the fact that seemingly all consulates now send documents to their respective consulate for "verification" - for example, if you had a birth certificate from Alabama, your Boston consulate would send it to the Miami consulate for verification. This can add weeks or months to the total process time.

Re-reading your question, I want to be sure we are talking the same game.

1) Documents are submitted to applicant's local consulate

2) Assuming all is in order, after some period of time consulate notifies applicant that his/her citizenship has been recognized and documents have been forwarded to ancestral comune for registration

3a) For some consulates (such as NYC) this marks the end of the road and the applicant is invited to make an appointment to return to the consulate for his Italian passport at any time.

3b) Other consulates require the applicant wait until documents have been registered in the ancestral comune and the applicant has requested and received a copy of his/her Italian birth certificate. Only then can he/she apply for the Italian passport.

Am I correct in that you are still waiting on step 2?

[bmilazzo]

I was asked to come to the consulate with my originals. The consulate accepted all my documents (prior to this, I had correct and/or submitted per the consulate's requests). I filled out the citizen application I was given. I specifically asked that, once the consulate accepted my documents, which they did, was I not "approved" and I was told that the commune must do as the consulate directs i.e. accept my documents and issue me an Italian birth and marriage certificate.

[johnnyonthespot]

Yes, the consulate (actually, the consulate's resident stato civile officer, as nearly as I can tell) has the final say - if he deems your application to be complete and that a clear lineage of "Italian blood" is proven, then he will approve your application and pronounce you to have been born a citizen of Italy. He then forwards your information to the ancestral comune where it will be entered into the comune's registers.

I think the question here is the meaning of the "consulate accepted all my documents" vs. the "consulate approved my application" as these are two different things. What generally seems to happen is the consulate nit-picks the obvious errors or discrepancies and, once those are corrected, accepts your documents and application into the system. This step seems to usually be performed by a 2nd tier official.

The next steps are to review the documents for authenticity (a process which may involve sending some of them to other consulates for verification), and for the stato civile officer to make the final determination as to whether the case for citizenship jure sanguinis has been proven. If he concurs, this is the point where the consulate normally mails out a letter to the applicant stating that his citizenship has "been recognized" and that documents have been forwarded to the ancestral comune for recording.

From what you have stated thus far, I believe you are still waiting for this critical step. The time required for this operation depends on many factors and anything from one month to one year is within the boundaries seen by most applicants at most consulates.

[bmilazzo]

No, I am further along. I submitted all my documents as photocopies. I was asked to verify a few things and all their questions were answered. A few months later I was asked to bring all my originals to the consulate. I did. The person in charge, Signore C., reviewed them. They were correct and in order. He told me he had everything. He had another consulate employee come in and fill out a form which I signed. I was told that I must now wait until the commune (which happens to be the same commune as his home city) responds.

So, I am looking for any information as to how long I should have to wait.

[jennabet]

I applied at Philadelphia -- but it was 10 years ago. I never received a letter but was told on the phone that "Your documents have been sent to your comune in Italy and it is now out of our hands". I never received anything in writing from the comune. But since I was moving to Italy, I called the consulate twice a month for a couple of months to inquire about my status until they told me, "You can now apply for your passport".

If I were you, Milazzo, I would call the consulate and ask for an update on your status. Or you could call the comune yourself and inquire and ask them to send word to your consulate because you have to apply for a passport. By the way, if you have a plane ticket and give your departure date to both the consulate and your comune, you may see better results.

I don't think anybody can second guess what may hold things up, such as "documents having to be sent to other consulates for verification". Not every case is the same, no matter where the documents originated.

[priere]

What you're waiting on is for your documents to be recorded in your comune now, congratulations!!

My wait was five months as my docs went first to NY for verification then on to my comune. Other people have had it turned around faster and some slower. You will hear back from the consulate when they have been notified you're registered.

[jennabet]

Amazing that your docs had to go first to the New York Consulate when New York State uses sort of a double-check apostille process as it is.

[mler]

Only NYC uses the two-step process. The rest of the state does not. Some consulates do send documents to other consulates for verification, possibly documents with which they are unfamiliar. The Newark consulate told me they would be sending my Texas document out for verification. They probably don't see too many documents from that state.

[bmilazzo]

This is correct. NYC requires exemplification plus Apostille. NY state does not. Been there. Some consulates will send documents to another Consulate to be verified or to be explained. For example, my MC did not list a city, only a county. Even with the original application the consulate went to the consulate in the area of the country where I was married and sought verification of the state and local marriage process.

[jennabet]

New York State also requires it. I have a birth certificate and a death certificate both from Niagara Falls, NY. I sent them for Apostille to Niagara County and both needed exemplification.

[bmilazzo]

That's news to me. I ordered two BC's from NYC. Both had to have an exemplification and Apostille. Ordered a DC and MC from NY state, only needed an apostille. The county isn't the same as the state. And I can tell you from dealing with NJ local and state, and NY local and state, that the consulates will not accept county or local documents, at least not in Boston. In NJ, it is misleading because the local, county, and state use the same form but only the state is acceptable. The state carries a different seal.
With the DC, I went county first in NY but the state refused to apostille it and Boston would not accept it anyway.
Sounds to me like typical NY gouging people. NJ too.

[jennabet]

When did you send for your documents? I did mine this year, in February. That would have been after the 2010 mid-term election and after the new Secretaries of States were installed. If the incumbants in New New York State lost, this would be the reason for the changes.

[bmilazzo]

Last year.

[priere]

Sounds like they've changed the process for New York state docs. Mine only required the apostille which was in early 2010. The majority of my documents were CT though which is the main reason.

Oh, and speaking of gouging... CT does that! They charged 40$ an apostille! With 7 documents from CT it ran me 280$ for apostilles. My NYS doc was 2nd cheapest at only 10$ and the MA doc being the cheapest at 6$.