A number of people who are seeking Spanish citizenship have sent an open letter to several actors expressing their discontent about the lengthy administrative procedures for naturalization.
The letter, directed to the Argentine and Spanish media and the Spanish Foreign Minister, addressed concerns about the delays that this group of descendants is encountering while obtaining their documentation in the Spanish Consulate in Cordoba.
The letter has been signed by María Isabel Gimenez Spaggiari, Alina Mabel Mazza Marcos, Mariano Ramiro Marcote Muñoz, Betiana Belen Brito Conde and Macarena Santos Usandivaras, who are seeking Spanish citizenship based on the framework of the Democratic Memory Law, also known as the Grandchildren Law, which enables descendants of people that were expelled from the country during the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship to obtain citizenship.
The reception procedures began late in Cordoba, a consulate representing several Spanish provinces, and the wait to receive the username and password – which is essential to proceed with the application process, can take up to 90 days, two months longer than previously reported.
In their letter, applicants point out that there are numerous of them who submitted their documentation in February and continue waiting.
Getting appointments is another odyssey since the shift usually opens at dawn, between 2 and 6, lasting seconds. This page was down for almost a month. Another reason for deep regret is the hundreds of ‘lost’ emails with PDFs containing sensitive information about the descendants; it is still not understood how this could have happened.
They also point out that when they presented the documentation in person, consular workers reported delays in the resolution are between one and two years, which can randomly increase from two to five years.
Applicants further explain their emotional burden caused by waiting, saying they left the consulate with “tears in our eyes and deep regret”.
On the other hand, the Consul General Javier Ignacio Martínez del Barrio has revealed that the Consulate General of Spain in Cordoba has received almost 17,000 applications to access Spanish citizenship within this framework, with applicants having time until October 2024 to finish their citizenship application procedures.
The process of processing Spanish nationality through the Law of Grandchildren can be done by pursuing several steps, including searching for fundamental documents such as birth certificates, apostilles and forms that must be sent by email in a PDF format document to the consulate.
When sending the email, applicants receive an automatic response confirming receipt and establishing a 30-day period to obtain a second response in which a username and password are sent to request the appointment in which all the papers will be presented in person.
