Consulate General of Italy

The bureaucracy of Italy right here in the USA! We called ahead of time to ensure we had the correct documents before making the 4 hour trip. My wife has a U.S. passport as proof of her U.S. residency. Guess what? That's not good enough. They need her naturalization certificate. Really? Since when doesn't a passport prove citizenship? Am I on a different planet? My son was born at a U.S. hospital overseas and has a consular birth abroad birth certificate. Guess what? Not good enough. They need something from the local hospital, who has no record of his birth. Why? Because he was born on a U.S. base. Of course a consular birth certificate isn't good enough but a birth certificate from a random U.S. hospital is. As my wife tried to navigate her way around this nonsense, I watched as the same lady turned away countless people. It was clear that her primary goal was to find ways to turn people away for truly arbitrary reasons. No common sense. They should be ashamed. I love Italy but like I said, bureaucracy and extreme rigidness at its finest.