Italian Consulates

[teakandreggie]

What does the Italian Gov have to gain from granting us dual citizenship?
If they want us so bad, why are the Italian Consulates making it so difficult for us?
I understand the process for applying and know the advantages for Americans, but what does the Italian Gov have to gain from this. And how do Italians living in Italy feel about this?

[johnnyonthespot]

What does the Italian Gov have to gain from granting us dual citizenship?
If they want us so bad, why are the Italian Consulates making it so difficult for us?
I understand the process for applying and know the advantages for Americans, but what does the Italian Gov have to gain from this. And how do Italians living in Italy feel about this?

Haha, I've thought about this before.

Second question, "why are the Italian Consulates making it so difficult for us?" I sometimes think they (some of the consulate employees) simply resent us. They think, perhaps rightly so in many cases, that we are just looking for free health care, pensions, "La dolce vita", without having paid the price that long-suffering Italians have paid.

First question, "What does the Italian Gov have to gain from granting us dual citizenship?" Okay, stick with me on this one:

a) Italian government encourages lots of us, maybe ultimately a million or more of us, to reclaim our heritage

b) Once they have suckered us all in, they implement a small tax, say Euro 20 per year, on all Italians living abroad. They could say it is to help support the consulates and the cost of keeping track of all of us. 99% of us moan but go along and pay the tax. 1,000,000 x 99% x 20 = Euro 19,800,800 annuall tax revenue.

c) A few years later, the tax is increased to Euro 50 per year and, later, maybe Euro 100 per year. 99% of us scream bloody murder, perhaps 10 or 15% say "screw this" and renounce their Italian citizenship (which now costs Euro 200 to do so, by the way). The other 89% of the original million pay the tax. 1,000,000 x 89% x 100 = Euro 89 Million per year in tax revenue.

Not bad!

[johnnyonthespot]

Also, this from a recent post of mine:

Individual consulates and consulate workers vary as to their concern over anglicizations, misspellings, and date discrepancies. In general, the consulates which had been lax in this area seem to be tightening their standards. Apparently fraudulent documents/applications had been on the increase and new rules were issuedto get things back under control.

[johnnyonthespot]

New link: http://expatsinitaly.com/phpbbforum/vie ... f=7&t=4217

[teakandreggie]

I believe you are right.
Our ancestors left Italy for a better life here. When life got to rough there, they took the first ship out. I don't blame Italians living in Italy for looking unfavorable toward us. I would probably feel the same way, if I were on the other side.

Taxing citizens aboard would be a huge revenue for Italy. Especially since many would never use their services.

So if the Italian Gov has this great plan in the works, why haven't they let the consulates in on it. Maybe they would go easier on us. Ultimately, they could retire to Sardinia with a very nice pension.

[PeterTimber]

Dear T & R the USA was one of a few nations that expressly forbid US citizens from having dual citizenship until the 1960's I believe when a US citizen ran for political office in israel and when his citizenship was revoked the Supreme Courtheld otherwise and thereafter any US citizern could have a foreign dual nationality. The European Union came into being and their mutual boundries suspended. It bcame fashionable to have dual citizenship for ease and safety in travelling abroad. It became law

Where did you got the idea that Italians look unfavorable upon us?? =Peter=

[corrado]

I have been treated with respect by the consulate. Try getting a green card in the usa. I wonder if you feel this way why you are bothering to do all ths?

[johnnyonthespot]

An excellent tretise on dual citizenship as it relates to the US can be found at http://www.richw.org/dualcit/.

... the USA was one of a few nations that expressly forbid US citizens from having dual citizenship until the 1960's I believe when a US citizen ran for political office in israel and when his citizenship was revoked the Supreme Courtheld otherwise and thereafter any US citizern could have a foreign dual nationality...

Thisis true, however a person who becomes a naturalized citizen of the US still has to renounce all other allegiances and citizenships (Faq #2 on http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway):

Rules against dual citizenship still apply to some extent -- at least in theory -- to people who wish to become US citizens via naturalization. The Supreme Court chose to leave in place the requirement that new citizens must renounce their old citizenship during US naturalization. However, in practice, the State Department is no longer doing anything in the vast majority of situations where a new citizen's "old country" refuses to recognize the US renunciation and continues to consider the person's original citizenship to be in effect.

And, in fact, I believe it was Italy's changes in their own laws effective 1992 which state, in effect, that Italy will no longer recognize this form of renunciation. Thus since 1992, even though a newly naturalized US citizen still renounces his Italian citizenship, the country of Italy ignores this renunciation and continues to afford the person all the rights and responsibilities of Italian citizenship. When this law went into effect, Italy also opened a five year "window of opportunity" which allowed persons who had previously renounced Italian citizenship to reclaim it merely by filing a declaration expressing their desire to do so. This window of opportunity closed on December 31, 1997.

[PeterTimber]

Right after WW11 there were hundreds if not thousands of Italian and German POW's who were born in the USA and wound up in Italy and Germany and were drafted into the Italian and German army. Well one day a Sicilian USC taken back to Sicily as a child after divorcing his wife and wound up somewhere in Texas as a POW. He called his mother in NYC and she went out with his birth certificate to get her son since he is an American citizen. Well when they refused to release an American citizen she sued inthe Supreme Court and the White House (Roosevelt) and the Secretary of War Stimson were very upset by having to release all these enemy aliens back to their families inthe USA that they DEPORTED the Italian and German US citizens back and revoked their citizenship in violation of the Constitution..........the moral to the story is that the government does what they want to do and are more often than not the biggest violators of the US Constitution.

So all the nonsense about citizenship is hugely dependent upon whatever the politicians deem it to be despite the "Law of the Land" =Peter=

[johnnyonthespot]

the moral to the story is that the government does what they want to do and are more often than not the biggest violators of the US Constitution.

So all the nonsense about citizenship is hugely dependent upon whatever the politicians deem it to be despite the "Law of the Land" =Peter=

Peter, it saddens me greatly to have to say that I agree with you on this point. Long gone from my heart and soul is the young man's notion that government is here to protect me.

People who know me in real life will recognize immediately the following statement as I utter it often, "We in the US are living in an age when more so than ever, the people who make our laws (legislators), enforce our laws (police), and adjudicate our laws (judges, lawyers, court personnel), now hold themselves to be above the law." Examples can be found in the newspaper nearly everyday.

Adding insult to injury, what are we to do when bankers and stockbrokers see nothing wrong with their multi-million dollar annual bonuses and cannot understand what all the fuss is about?

What are we to do when our US Senate and House of Representatives are hashing out the vote on a huge restructuring of our healthcare system and these senators and representatives freely admit that the bill is so large that none of them have bothered to actually read it through? And cannot understand what all the fuss is about?

Why is it that the average birth/marriage/death certificate in the US costs $65 to obtain (and often several months time) when the same can be had from Italy at no cost and often (but not always, I admit) in just a few weeks?

And finally, has anyone looked lately at what the US charges in fees to immigrants who wish to become US citizens? http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ ... 18190aRCRD I

[mler]

What does the Italian Gov have to gain from granting us dual citizenship?
If they want us so bad, why are the Italian Consulates making it so difficult for us?
I understand the process for applying and know the advantages for Americans, but what does the Italian Gov have to gain from this. And how do Italians living in Italy feel about this?

1. Nothing.
2. They don't want us badly. It's simply that Italian law recognizes citizenship jure sanguinis. When they liberalized the law in 1992 to permit dual citizenship, I doubt it was with the intent to encourage a flood of applications. It was more likely designed to allow recent emigrants the opportunity to retain their Italian citizenship. As the word spread, however, they got more than they bargained for.
3. Italians living in Italy are as different from each other as individual Americans. It's impossible to generalize. I did, however, tell my Italian friends and relatives when I began the process; and the most frequent response was "Why?"

[teddi]

Those of us from North America often forget that the bulk of Italian emigration went to South America- today there are 25 million Italian- Brazilians, 20 million Italian-Argentines, and a few million more spread around Uruguay, Peru, Chile, etc.

In the 1970s-1980s those Latin American countries experienced big problems- political oppression and economic crises. Southern European nations with historically large emigrations and close ethnic ties to Latin America encouraged return of descendants of emigrants to the mother countries. Spain, Portugal and Italy all changed laws, treaties and policies to facilitate their return.

This was the environment the legge 91/1992 arose from. Google and read press accounts of politicians' arguments for the law and public opinion from that era.

Times have changed. Now the Italian government and public opinion discourage immigration. Unfortunately this bleeds over into recognition of jure sanguinis citizenship as well- witness the difficulties at Italian consulates in Brazil, for example. Hopefully things will swing back a bit the other way in a few years. At some point, inability to support the social welfare/health systems with a below-replacement-level birth rate must break into Italian public consciousness.

[PeterTimber]

within 50 years Muslims will be the majority (or close to it) in Italy. The current birthrate in Italy among Italian citizens is 1.2 children per couple while the muslims are busy creating virgins. =Peter=

[liviomoreno]

within 50 years Muslims will be the majority (or close to it) in Italy. The current birthrate in Italy among Italian citizens is 1.2 children per couple while the muslims are busy creating virgins. =Peter=

Please avoid to write sentences that may offend the reader!

[teakandreggie]

Knowledge can only be obtain from asking questions and searching for the answers.
I am grateful for all the feed back on this topic. But I would like to hear from Italian citizens living in Italy, how they feel about dual Italian citizenship. Are they for it or against it.