San Francisco Consulate MIA

[heidebock]

Hi, the instructions on how to apply for jus sanguinis posted on the San Francisco consulate's site indicate that they are "streamlining" their ability to process these requests and that they would begin responding to emails in March. Well, I have sent 2 emails so far and received nothing.

I am wondering if anyone out there had received an email from San Francisco in the past 2 weeks about scheduling a jus sanguinis appointment? Should I call them to figure out what's going on?

Any advice or news would be appreciated!

thanks

Erik

[johnnyonthespot]

Does "in March" mean March 1st or March 31st?

[heidebock]

well, for me it means March 1st, 8AM PDT - for them, yes, it appears to mean March 31st, 4PM PST. I was just wondering if anyone else had heard back from them - as you know, some people tend to get excited and impatient during this process - I'm human.

[ForzaItaliaPgh]

It took me about 7 months of calls and emails to finally schedule my appointment with the consulate in Philly. I only was able to get an appt b/c Philly hired an outside company to take over scheduling appts.

The consulates, from what I've been told, are understaffed and overwhelmed. Stay on them and they'll eventually schedule your appointment. Good Luck.

[zsnyder]

I've corresponded with Mr. Cei via email on several occasions over the last two weeks and his replies are prompt.

However it did take about a week to receive confirmation of my appointment when Ms. Stone was with the consulate. Also keep in mind that the staff is quite small and they handle 7 states.

[bene2950]

I applied in October 2010 by email and last week I recieved a call and received an appointment on April 14. Mr. Cei is very nice and answered all the questions I asked.

[heidebock]

UPDATE: I called the SF Consulate and spoke with who I presume is Mr. Cei. He sounded frustrated and overworked but spent quite a bit of time with me on the phone and also answered my questions. He basically told me that Italy had not funded the citizenship section of the SF consulate for months, and they just recently got funding again - the catch is that he was the sole product of the funding - 1 man working on a mountain of applications. He told me that he was currently working through 2011's appointment requests, and that he was on #30, with my application being #127, so it would be a couple of weeks until we heard from him. Another interesting tidbit is that he said out of 15 appointments last week, only 4 showed - so he was quite frustrated at the large % of no-shows.