I will be applying for dual citizenship through the Detroit consulate. I heard that I needed to get documents validated by the consulate governing the state that issued the documents. That means sending the NY docs to the NYC consulate and the Pennsylvania docs to the Philadelphia consulate.
I found some information about this on http://italiancitizenship.freeforums.org/
I'm applying through Boston, and I am currently waiting for translation validations from CA, NJ, and NY. I emailed the NY consulate asking how to obtain a validation from their consulate and here's the response I received:
"Dear Sir:
In reference to your request to have your certificates issued in New York State validated by this Consulate, in order to apply for Italian citizenship, you might proceed according to one of the following options :
1) come in at our Office prior scheduling an appointment, providing:
– original Long Form certificate legalized with Apostille, translation in Italian and a set of copies; (should you choose to have a representative to come in, please provide a Power of Attorney specifying the purpose of your request and attach a copy of your passport). On that day, you will be required to pay the legalization fees.
2) send by mail:
– your statement indicating the purpose of your request;
– original Long Form certificate legalized with Apostille and translation in Italian and a set of copies;
– a copy of your passport;
– a credit card number to charge the fees due for legalization (American Express not accepted);
– a pre-paid envelope to return the documentation to you;
– the attached form filled out and signed by you in front of a Notary Public.
Regards
Anna Amoroso
Citizenship Office
Consulate General of Italy
New York
I, the undersigned…………………………………………………………………………
Born on………………………………………….in…………………………………………..
Residence………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
holder I.D. no……………………………………….
issued by……………………………………………….
do hereby declare that I assume all responsibility for the mailing of my original documents.
I understand that the Consulate General of Italy in New York is NOT responsible for the loss or damage of my documents in transit.
I therefore wish for my documents to be mailed back to me via the pre-stamped envelope that I have provided including a photocopy.
Date
________________________
(signature)"
I followed these instructions (even included a copy of this email with notes directing the reader to the corresponding tab for each required document I enclosed). As you can see you must send in the original doc, and hold NY harmless for its loss. That's ominous, but I did it anyway.
I didn't want to send in my credit card number without knowing the fees, but they have not responded to my follow up email on this matter. FWIW, both SF and NJ quote a fee of $8.50 per original document page. They accepted money orders for the validation.
I didn't know about the other requirements described above so I stapled the translation pages together and just clipped them to the original. Hope that doesn't hurt me.
BTW, the SF consulate received my docs last Thursday, and I saw via USPS tracking that they have mailed my docs back to me already! That's a 2 day turnaround. NJ said they would turn it around in a day or so too. Don't know about NY. I only submitted one doc to them.