Do you feel worried about your upcoming interview at the Italian Consulate during which you will be submitting the required documentation to apply for Italian citizenship by descent?
Are you uncertain about how to behave before the consular clerk?
Below is a description of a hypothetical citizenship appointment (in reality, consulates may have their own peculiar way of conducting the interview and may follow slightly different rules) along with some helpful tips to help you during your “big day”.
First of all, make sure you show up at least 30 minutes before your appointment: any delay may result in the cancellation of your reservation. You don’t want to risk that!
It is possible that you will need to queue outside the Consulate and wait for a security guard to check you in. Usually institutional buildings like consulates have security doors and only one person enters at a time. Generally, only individuals with an appointment are allowed to access the consulate.
At the front desk, the consulate staff will ask for the reason of your visit and direct you to the citizenship department. You will be asked to patiently wait in a common waiting room where you will await your turn. The citizenship clerk will call your name and will wait for you at a glass window. First, you will be asked for your appointment confirmation and the consular staff will provide a ticket number. You will then be asked to take a seat again in the waiting room.
When your number is called, you will be asked to approach the window again and the “citizenship appointment” will begin.
If you are worried about your ability to speak Italian during the interview, bear in mind that under Italian Law you are not required to speak Italian in order to apply for Italian Citizenship.
Your appointment is not a test! You are not applying for naturalization as an Italian citizen, but for the retroactive recognition of your birth status. Consequently, the application is entirely based on documentary evidence that you have held Italian citizenship since birth, regardless of whatever motivation led you to apply for Italian citizenship.
First of all, you will be asked to show your picture ID and passport, proof of residency within the consular jurisdiction (for instance a utility bill) and to state which relative of yours is the Italian-born ancestor. You will then be asked to slip all of your citizenship documents below the glass. The clerk will review all of your documents thoroughly to make sure you are entitled to Italian citizenship.
He/she could ask you for clarifications, if necessary, to better identify the individuals in your Italian lineage of ancestry.
Keep in mind that the consulate will retain all the original documents submitted the day of your appointment with the exception of the certificate of naturalization (if you presented it in original).
Therefore, if you are interested in keeping copies of the certificates for your records be sure to make photocopies of all the vital record documents prior to your arrival at the consulate.
The evaluation of the “citizenship documents” is normally performed in great detail and the clerk could potentially identify major discrepancies to be an obstacle to granting Italian citizenship. If that happens, in most cases the applicant is given a “remarks sheet” with the activities related to the documents that he/she is requested to carry out to make the application “acceptable” and/or additional documents required by the consulate to be able to process the citizenship application. However, the clerk may also inform you verbally of the missing documents or documents that must be corrected: if this is the case, make sure you take notes!
Finally, the clerk will take care of processing your payment of the consular fee to apply for Italian citizenship; in most cases, consulates accept payments by money order, cashier’s check or cash. Make sure you check the payment method before you head to the consulate, as well as the exact amount to be remitted as the consular fee for citizenship applications is updated every fiscal quarter.
You won’t know the exact outcome of your appointment right away. The consulate by law has a 730-day time frame to process your request and in most cases citizenship applications are processed in a 6-12-month time frame. You will be informed if you are awarded Italian citizenship by mail or e-mail. You may want to ask for an update on the status of your citizenship application once in a while. However, requests for updates are normally not addressed promptly due to the huge number of citizenship applications: you may have to follow up several times!
