Philadelphia Consulate

[belmoro19]

forzaitaliapgh, i made my first appointment last year which was scheduled for may 2010 but had to cancel. i emailed them again in march of this year to reschedule and at first they told me august 2011 but then they had a cancelation on february 2011, so i took it. i guess i lucked out. hope it works out for you

[Mulé]

If they were interested in processing these requests, you would think they would hire another worker. Does that tell you something? They must have a quota, to only accept X # of applications per consulate per year. The intake process takes about an hour. I am not sure how much document verification they do, or is necessary with the Apostille "Hague convention recognizing foreign documents". I guess they must somehow try to verify that the documents are not forgeries. The whole charade is farcical.

[PeterTimber]

This does not bode well for residing in Italy every day does it? =Peter=

[Mulé]

I guess the "day to day" or "every day" frustrations would depend on your level of interaction with the government, if you are implying that the whole system is the same. I didn't have that experience, while I lived in Italy in the early 90s for a year (a year isn't a long time and I am in no means a bureaucratic expert). I had PdS, residency, local bank accounts, identity card, bought and registered a car, insurance, codice fiscale, etc... so I had many interactions with the government and the laws, just none of the consular charades.

[PeterTimber]

sounds like the USA doesn't it? =Peter=

[DeFilippis78]

What i find disheartening is that we can wait all this time for an appointment, pay for and gather all the proper documentation and STILL get turned down. Ive seen people on this board who had every t crossed and every i dotted and were turned away. It makes me very uncertain on continuing the process.

Alicia

[johnnyonthespot]

If they were interested in processing these requests, you would think they would hire another worker. Does that tell you something? They must have a quota, to only accept X # of applications per consulate per year. The intake process takes about an hour. I am not sure how much document verification they do, or is necessary with the Apostille "Hague convention recognizing foreign documents". I guess they must somehow try to verify that the documents are not forgeries. The whole charade is farcical.

Rumor has it that consulates send documents which originated outside their own jurisdiction to other consulates for "verification." The concept being that the New York City consulate, for example, has no way of knowing for certain that a certified & apostilled birth certificate from Idaho is legitimate (the apostille could be phony, after all), so they send it to the San Francisco consualte and ask, "hey, is this thing real?"

[Mulé]

Could just be something to do with dealing with Americans in general, even ones who have a right to be Italian. Or it could just be how they choose to represent their country while abroad. Not sure, it is just crazy IMHO. There must be a mandate or a reason for this behavior as it isn't really consulate specific, seems most of them are playing by the same rules. I guess just as we have immigration policy, they must have the same with people on both sides of the issue, for and against it. The pendulum must be swinging towards the latter at the moment.

[PeterTimber]

The Italian Consulates around the world are deluged with applications for dual citizenship, particularly South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Peru. These are mostly the northern Italians who were in bad economic straits after the napoleonic wars in the early 1800's who were and still are under bad economic conditions. it was only after our ciivil war here in the USA did southern Italians come pouring over (Thank God) after Garibaldi and the House of Savoy did their pillaging and looting of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. =Peter=

[Mulé]

Rumor has it that consulates send documents which originated outside their own jurisdiction to other consulates for "verification." The concept being that the New York City consulate, for example, has no way of knowing for certain that a certified & apostilled birth certificate from Idaho is legitimate (the apostille could be phony, after all), so they send it to the San Francisco consualte and ask, "hey, is this thing real?"

LMAO, I know. This is what I was told as well. Italy is a signatory to the Hague Convention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conv ... _Documents
I guess they feel American's with their fancy printers are forging tons of Apostilles. But they are recorded, numbered and logged for a reason and there is a method to verify these documents. If you contact the originating state's department of state to verify an apostilled document by serial number, and they confirm that the number matches the document you are looking at, there isn't a problem. I would like to guess that the number of forged apostilles presented to the Italian consulate from the US be close to zero, if not in fact zero. This is purely a guess though. It is the verification that would seem most difficult to bypass, it would be very difficult and the cost/expense makes it not worth the effort.

Contract Law, Importance of Apostille: The Apostille Certificate was created by the Hague Conference, which is a global organisation bringing countries together to try and simplify legal systems from one country to another. Each country has its own legal system so members of the Hague Conference agree on certain issues to follow specific guidelines. The Apostille Certificate is one such agreement or convention, most member countries agree that a document which has been legalised with an Apostille Certificate in its country of origin will be accepted in any other member country. This removes the need for further evidence to be obtained to prove the documents authenticity.

Anyone hear of the e-Apostille pilot program? Maybe if implemented would speed up this process. http://www.e-app.info/FAQ3.cfm

[Mulé]

The Italian Consulates around the world are deluged with applications for dual citizenship, particularly South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Peru.

I can't find the link/post to the actual numbers of applications, I remember seeing it though. anyone have it?

[johnnyonthespot]

The Italian Consulates around the world are deluged with applications for dual citizenship, particularly South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Peru.

I can't find the link/post to the actual numbers of applications, I remember seeing it though. anyone have it?

It's been awhile, but the last time I saw numbers they were posted on http://expatsinitaly.com/phpbbforum, probably by reigning king and protector of his domain, Bill2.1.

[Mulé]

It's been awhile, but the last time I saw numbers they were posted on http://expatsinitaly.com/phpbbforum, probably by reigning king and protector of his domain, Bill2.1.

lol... looking now... I thought there were many applications and agree many from south america, just didn't think it was an un-surmountable number from my understanding of how many appointments the consulates give out each year and the process involved. I would love to see each consulate's application numbers detailed out by year. oh, transparency, where art thou?

[johnnyonthespot]

I seem to recall that the wait time in Brazil was as much as ten years...

Did you know that the Italian government believes there are more people of Italian descent in South America than any other place on earth? I posted a link in the last few days; don't have time to get to it just now.

[Mulé]

I seem to recall that the wait time in Brazil was as much as ten years...

Did you know that the Italian government believes there are more people of Italian descent in South America than any other place on earth? I posted a link in the last few days; don't have time to get to it just now.

It isn't just Italy. The second largest Japanese population outside of Japan is in Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi ... mmigration

Brazil is a contender!

From Wikipedia:

Italians started arriving in Brazil in 1875. First they settled in rural communities across Southern Brazil. In the early 20th century, they mostly settled in the coffee plantations in the Southeast. 25 million Brazilians are of Italian origin, the largest number outside of Italy itself, most of them descended from Northern Italians.

The first Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908. Nowadays, Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.[13] According to the IBGE, as of 2000 there were between 1.4 and 1.5 million people of Japanese descent in Brazil,[9] [14] more than the 1.2 million in the United States.[15]

See link for references...