foreigner married to Dominican

Patricia Oliver

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Aug 19, 2002
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I am a citizen of the US and have been married to a Dominican since 1996. We plan to return to the DR soon (I served there as a Peace Corps volunteer) and I would like to know how my marital status affects my residency in the DR.

Thank you.
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
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A Quick Peek in the DR1 legal pages and Viola!

Good idea to have a boo in the reference section prior to/in addition to posting, there is a wealth of good, easy to read, helpful stuff........


Who has the right to Dominican citizenship?


In addition to being the offspring of a Dominican citizen, you can acquire Dominican citizenship through marriage. A foreign woman who marries a Dominican has the right to Dominican citizenship. This does not work in reverse. A foreign man who marries a Dominican woman does not have the automatic right to Dominican citizenship.

I was told it would be easier to apply for Dominican citizenship than for a residence?

I am an American woman married to a Dominican man.
This is true because less government departments are involved with the issuing of the citizenship, different from the residence. When you deal with the citizenship, you just deal with the Ministry of Interior and Police. When dealing with the residence card, you have to deal with the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Department of Migration.


Presumably you'll take citizenship with its built in right of residency. If you come to visit you'll save of tourist cards at ten clams a throw, and if to live, you should be able to skip a lot of red tape, though I bet there is some red tape getting the citizenship.

P.S. I know it's Voila! as well.
 
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hansbert

*** Sin Bin ***
Mar 1, 2002
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linguisticservices.aio-world.net
Residence and citizenship based on marriage with a Dominican citizen

To my knowledge a foreign woman married to a Dominican man is not granted automatically the citizenship but may apply for it after at least six months of residence in the country. Marriage to a Dominican citizen entitles a foreign woman to apply for a residence permit. At present an application for provisional residence (valid for 1 year) may be lodged directly with the dpto. de extranjer?a of the Direcci?n General de migraci?n. The requirement of an application for a residence visa with the Ministry of Foreign affairs under the former government has been waived. It is less complicated to apply for provisional residence since the President of the Republic himself has discretionary power to grant the Dominican nationality to a foreigner.
 

jojocho

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Jul 10, 2002
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I'm not sure what the citizenship process looks like, but I do know that my mother-in-law has ben married to a dominican for 31 years and though she has tried many times to become a citizen she decided to stop trying because the process was so complicatde and long, so she setled for being a resident.
 

Fabio J. Guzman

DR1 Expert
Jan 1, 2002
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A foreign woman married to a Dominican man is entitled to obtain Dominican citizenship (Art. 11, Section 4, Paragraph III of the Constitution).

Neither the Constitution nor any statute establishes any comparable benefit for a foreign man who marries a Dominican woman in connection with obtaining citizenship or residency.
 

Luis

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Jan 21, 2002
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So what would happen if afterwards obtaining citizenship they get divorced?, does the woman then loses DR citizenship?..
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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For some reason, many Dominicans tend to think of citizenship as a facilitator. It is something that can be moved around, plqayed with, and used to one's convenience..
Most Americans will jealously guard their citizenship against all other obstacles. If you take up Dominican citizenship, you lose your little blue passport that lets you into about 95% of the worlds's countries without hassle, and you acquire another little blue book that entitles you to be treated like a prostitute throuout Europe, like a drug courier in parts of the USA and like a piece of meat in the Dominican judicial system...go figure!

HB
 

Fabio J. Guzman

DR1 Expert
Jan 1, 2002
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"Many Americans, even lawyers, are misinformed about the U.S. citizenship naturalization process, says San Diego Immigration lawyer Robert Martino.

Perhaps the biggest myth is that the country does not recognize dual citizenship. In fact, those who take the oath of citizenship in this country are required to renounce all allegiances to foreign governments. However, some countries do not recognize this renunciation and are willing to continue to extend the benefits of citizenship in the home country to the naturalized American.

As for native-born Americans who become citizens of another country, the State Deparment requires a showing that the Americans intended to lose their U.S. citizenship. Committing an act of expatriation, such as joining a foreign military or becoming an official in a foreign government, among other things, is seen as evidence that the former American intends to renounce U.S. citizenship."

ABA Journal, September 2002, p. 40. Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of INS web site www.ins.usdoj.gov and U.S. Immigration and Citizenship, Revised Edition, by Allan Wernick, Prima Publishing, New York, 2002.
 

Dolores1

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May 3, 2000
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Hillbilly wrote above:
"If you take up Dominican citizenship, you lose your little blue passport that lets you into about 95% of the worlds's countries without hassle...."

Wrong. Fabio Guzman has it right. Having researched extensively on the issue on the Internet, I have found that it is not easy to lose the US citizenship. Not so long time ago, I also spoke to Dominican lawyer Emmanuel Esquea, who wrote the bill that allowed Dominicans to become dual nationals. He told me of several cases in US law that substantiate this point. There is a whole procedure that has to be gone through for one to give up the US nationality. What there is a lot of out there, is ignorance on the legal rights of dual citizens. Few people know there was even a President of Greece who was a dual citizen of Greece and the US, and I believe there are other similar instances. What definitely is not true is that if you take up Dominican citizenship, you lose your US citizenship. Neither is it true that if you take up US citizenship, you lose your Dominican citizenship.

Taking this a step further... The Dominican community in the United States should lobby so that the Dominican Constitution be changed so that a Dominican-American, that is a dual US and Dominican citizen, can become President of the Republic. With an estimated million Dominicans living in the United States, this should become a major issue in Dominican politics. I understand this is a proposal of the Dominican American Roundtable (http://www.danr.org) and should be supported by all Dominicans.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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Humm...I stand corrected. I knew that Dominican citizens could become US citizens and not lose their DR citizenship, but I certainly did not even imagine that a US citizen could swear fealty to a foreign nation without losing his US passport....Damn!

Now I realize why the US is getting so wishy-washy...

HB, amazed

P.S. Yes, I know that there is a long process that requires like three visits to the Consulate to renounce one's citizenship...
 

Jerry

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Jan 1, 2002
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Another way to lose US citizenship, is to become an Officer in a Foreign military or a "high ranking" political position. But the article does not say how high of a political position that needs to be.

Jerry