In the hopes of helping others reduce the stress of updating their Italian Permesso di Soggiorno I’m jotting down an account of what I did today and how it could have been easier. A big part of the problem is a poorly designed and probably mostly unnecessary bureaucratic process which I’m not going to try to fix. But another part of the problem was my own lack of preparation which could have been avoided.

In writing this I’m not going to go back and find the links or look things up — I know that would be useful and there are probably other blog posts that have that information but I’m trying to keep this short.

I’ve had a permesso di soggiorno for decades and it needs to be updated every five years, something I was ignorant of because the piece of paper clearly says it never expires. But after too many questions at the airport when I returned home to Italy with no ticket to leave again, I finally went online and filled out the forms or wrote a request (this you can find online I’m sure) and went to the post office and paid the fee. This was in October and I dutifully filed the receipt for payment stapled to another document listing what would be needed. After a month (I think) I received an sms with the date for the appointment a year later. I put this in my calendar.

A year later (yesterday) I saw the appointment, pulled out the text message I had saved and went to the appointed place at the appointed time with my passport and my valid (but really old) permesso di soggiorno. I had long forgotten that I had filed other paperwork and didn’t think to bring anything else.

First of all, this place is on the edge of town and not in a pretty tree-lined suburb. I’m a scholar of the gritty periphery and the Tor Sapienza zone is a fascinating case study of terrible urbanism. I debated taking public transit but I couldn’t afford the one hour plus predicted time which could have included long walks on the edge of roads made only for cars and lined with trash. There are some commercial/industrial sites, a Rom camp, some abandoned agricultural land, overgrown and filled with illegal dumping, and not much else nearby.

I had been out the Questura at Via T. Patini 19 before and knew that the transit experience would have already tested my patience. So I went by Vespa.

On arrival at this horrible building, bright yellow, surrounded by fences and looking like part abandoned office building and part medium security prison, I parked across the street (there was no parking area that I could see). . In the fenced area outside the building a crowd of people milled in a dense confused pack. At the tiny gate in the fence a few uniformed staff were fielding questions so I showed them my printed sms appointment for 10:30 and they said to go “under the white roof.”

I was a comfortable half hour early for the 10:30 appointment and didn’t yet know that didn’t mean anything. Under the shade of the white tent roof about 100 people of all ages and seemingly all nationalities stood in, well, not really a line but a closely packed clump. It was as if the contents of a crowded subway train had been put here without the train. At the front, on the other side of a low fence/gate, was a sole official in military fatigues with a walkee talk,an extremely good-looking Italian army official. He glanced at my paper and confirmed with a movie star smile that I should wait. So I got in “line” and tried to understand how this worked.

At this point I should have asked but it seemed that everyone was in the dark and while Italian was clearly the common language of the situation people around me spoke it to differing degrees, many clearly having arrived recently. I noticed almost everyone clinging to folders stuffed with documents and started to wonder if I should have done a bit more research about what was needed.

But I just waited. 10:30, the time of my appointment, came and went. Every once in a while the handsome soldier asked “who has and appointment at 9:00? and let a few people in. By 11:30 he was asking about 9:30 appointments. He came out and moved everyone back a few times when the crowd was pushing dangerously on the fence as crowds tend to do. But amazingly people were in good spirits. I witnessed a patience which must come from resignation and the realization that (as one of my colleagues in study abroad articulated very well recently) Italy doesn’t have an obligation to let anyone in. I disagree with the reasoning (and the poor economic logic) but the fact is that no one has a right to immigrate. It is a privilege and the people taking part in the process were salient of this. Sure, some people had fast track solutions (students from a major American university came with a staff member and were ushered through pretty quickly for example). Nothing was clear but no one complained.

Two hours passed and I stayed standing in the clump of humanity that gradually moved forward (and occasionally backward). About two hours after my appointment time the soldier at the gate (still calm and smiling despite the heat which in his thick full fatigues must have been a torture) started letting 10:30 appointments through and I found myself at the metal detector. Luckily I had nothing I shouldn’t have brought but unlike a visit to the Vatican, I hadn’t been instructed not to bring pen knives, etc. I also found myself rushing to put all my coins and watch in a my bag to put it through the metal detector, something I could have done calmly while waiting had I known.

Finally I climb to the third floor quickly and find an impressively short line to a counter. At this point I am prepared psychologically to be told I don’t have the right documents since everyone has pulled out their post office receipts and photographs and more. I showed the nice young man my printed text message and try to explain that “no one told me to bring anything else”. In his place I probably would have been snarky but he was understanding and said don’t worry, we can solve this. He instructs me to sit in a civilized little waiting room where a few people I had come to know in the line were also waiting. After just a minute my name shows up on the digital board amidst a veritable UN of other names and I go to counter 10.

I didn’t get the name of the person who assisted me there but she was a saint. She took my documents, asked for the required photographs but told me not to worry, I could go back down and take them at the booth (if i had known that I could have done so while waiting, yes). This required 6 euros cash which was exactly what I had on me, extremely lucky. She processed my request and told me to go to my local police staton in Monteverde after 2 months with the post office receipt to pick up the new permit. Then I got the fingerprints (digital, no ink). I left almost four hours after arriving with no new document, not even a receipt saying that I had completed this step, but I was assured that my old permit is still valid until the new one arrives.

What I would have done differently:

• remembered to look at the document I had received a year before listing what I should bring
• perhaps taken the chance of keeping my morning work appointments and showing up at the Questura at noon. Had I done that yesterday it wouldn’t have been a problem.
• I certainly wouldn’t have waited in the crowded cluster all that time but rather taken a seat and checked in occasionally to see what times were being called.
• brought more cash just in case there were unexpected fees like the the photo booth

What immigration could easily do differently:

• install signage explaining the process as they try to do in airports
• install a simple digital readout indicated “turns” as they do in supermarkets or the post office.
• Instead of 30 10:30 appointments schedule 10:31, 10:32, etc. and have these times visible on a screen
• Not schedule a 10:30 appointment if it can’t be respected. Maybe yesterday was exceptional but it seems to be the rule that appointment times are jokes.
• Give raises to all the people working there who in my experience are doing a great job (but given the chaos and poor organization clearly someone higher up could do a better job).

Apologies for a long post with not a single picture but it wasn’t one of those situations you want to photograph.