My Documents for Citizenship Were Accepted

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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I started the process in June of this year. It took three months to get an FBI report with an apostille.


Keeping true to form and using a lawyer only when absolutely necessary, my documents were submitted and approved yesterday for my citizenship application at the Guacal in Santo Domingo in the office of the Department of the Interior and Police. The government lawyer who reviewed my documents was very helpful. She is also VERY, VERY picky on how the documents are arranged in order, with four copies of everything, and on how a certain four documents are worded.

There were four documents I needed to be written and notarized in the DR. Those four documents done by a lawyer were the only ones I needed to re-do , using a different notary who followed the prope format, and I was good to go. Go figure it was a lawyer who screwed that up, saying he knew how to do those documents and did not and those documents needed a do over based upon the very particular style the government wanted. Examples of those documents are not posted on line, but were given to us by the government lawyer.

Every other document from the US and the DR , we did correctly by ourselves. FBI Report, Divorce, Death of Spouse, Solvency pre-requisites, all of the Apostilles, legalization and translation of them we had done ourselves.

Total cost all in including paying for the application is under $1,600 US. My total costs include all of the expenses I paid for the documents and trips to Santo Domingo including hotels and transportation. A lawyer wanted $400 US just for two simple to get documents from Migracion showing my record of entrances and exits and the other showing how long I had residency (which is 16 years). Another wanted to charge almost $500 to get my FBI report. I can imagine the cost for a lawyer to do the whole stack of documents I submitted. My wife did most of the work and the government lawyer said most lawyers do not do so well.

Did I mention the government lawyer was very particular? We took the 9:20 Caribe Tours bus to Santo Domingo and it was late. We arrived at the office at 5 minutes before 3 PM which is the time at which nobody else is admitted in to submit documents. The lawyer took our stack of documents, collated the newly done documents into the originals and four copies that are required and a guy walked in at 3:04 PM saying it was 3 PM. The government lawyer said no, it is 3:04 PM, I am working with these people and you come back tomorrow. Precise , she is. He left without further ado.

Now I have to study for the exam. Unfortunately, I was never good in my life at rote memorization. History, dates, and such held little interest in my educational process becoming an engineer. So now I do face a challenge greater than most in passing the test.

Thanks to William Webster and Matilda on how to proceed with this process.
 

Matilda

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Sep 13, 2006
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Congratulations. You should be fine in the exam. Just try and study when you can, and again remember they are particular. When asked what the currency of the country is, it is the Dominican peso = not just the peso. The names of everyone should also be in full President Danilo Medina Sánchez etc.

Matilda
 
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windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Congratulations. You should be fine in the exam. Just try and study when you can, and again remember they are particular. When asked what the currency of the country is, it is the Dominican peso = not just the peso. The names of everyone should also be in full President Danilo Medina Sánchez etc.

Matilda

You mean Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, and Albert Pujols won't work for the founding fathers?
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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No they are Juan, Pablo and Duarte

Matilda

Uhm. There are three and that is one of them.

Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sanchez and Ramon Matias Mella (with appropriate accent marks my English keyboard does not easily provide).
 

bob saunders

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Jan 1, 2002
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I started the process in June of this year. It took three months to get an FBI report with an apostille.


Keeping true to form and using a lawyer only when absolutely necessary, my documents were submitted and approved yesterday for my citizenship application at the Guacal in Santo Domingo in the office of the Department of the Interior and Police. The government lawyer who reviewed my documents was very helpful. She is also VERY, VERY picky on how the documents are arranged in order, with four copies of everything, and on how a certain four documents are worded.

There were four documents I needed to be written and notarized in the DR. Those four documents done by a lawyer were the only ones I needed to re-do , using a different notary who followed the prope format, and I was good to go. Go figure it was a lawyer who screwed that up, saying he knew how to do those documents and did not and those documents needed a do over based upon the very particular style the government wanted. Examples of those documents are not posted on line, but were given to us by the government lawyer.

Every other document from the US and the DR , we did correctly by ourselves. FBI Report, Divorce, Death of Spouse, Solvency pre-requisites, all of the Apostilles, legalization and translation of them we had done ourselves.

Total cost all in including paying for the application is under $1,600 US. My total costs include all of the expenses I paid for the documents and trips to Santo Domingo including hotels and transportation. A lawyer wanted $400 US just for two simple to get documents from Migracion showing my record of entrances and exits and the other showing how long I had residency (which is 16 years). Another wanted to charge almost $500 to get my FBI report. I can imagine the cost for a lawyer to do the whole stack of documents I submitted. My wife did most of the work and the government lawyer said most lawyers do not do so well.

Did I mention the government lawyer was very particular? We took the 9:20 Caribe Tours bus to Santo Domingo and it was late. We arrived at the office at 5 minutes before 3 PM which is the time at which nobody else is admitted in to submit documents. The lawyer took our stack of documents, collated the newly done documents into the originals and four copies that are required and a guy walked in at 3:04 PM saying it was 3 PM. The government lawyer said no, it is 3:04 PM, I am working with these people and you come back tomorrow. Precise , she is. He left without further ado.

Now I have to study for the exam. Unfortunately, I was never good in my life at rote memorization. History, dates, and such held little interest in my educational process becoming an engineer. So now I do face a challenge greater than most in passing the test.

Thanks to William Webster and Matilda on how to proceed with this process.

Practise with a kid. I had one of our teachers daughters, Maria age 11, ask me all the questions. By the time I knew the answers to more or less all the questions her knowledge of Dominican history...etc improved immensely
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
42,087
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Practise with a kid. I had one of our teachers daughters, Maria age 11, ask me all the questions. By the time I knew the answers to more or less all the questions her knowledge of Dominican history...etc improved immensely

That would be a good suggestion. However I don't live in a locale with such a kid around.
 

william webster

Platinum
Jan 16, 2009
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Music. ... Windy ---

First President of Rep Dom.... Santana

Study and apply a 'trigger ' word.. to remember

I studied for multiple choice.... studying for a written response is a bit different.


My test was 50/50 - multiple and written

you'll be fine ... important dates and people are the biggest things as I remember

Matilda's cheat sheet is a good one - 50 questions ?
10 will be asked
 
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windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Music. ... Windy ---

First President of Rep Dom.... Santana

Study and apply a 'trigger ' word.. to remember

I studied for multiple choice.... studying for a written response is a bit different.


My test was 50/50 - multiple and written

you'll be fine ... important dates and people are the biggest things as I remember

Matilda's cheat sheet is a good one - 50 questions ?
10 will be asked

I have the question and answer list that was provided to me when the forms were accepted from the MIP. Thanks for the encouragement.
 

SKY

Gold
Apr 11, 2004
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From someone that has had citizenship for over 15 years I will give one piece of advice. Get your passport right away. Don't take the position that you do not need it. You may well regret this one day. I assume you have someone helping you. There is a lot of paper work for this, and if you try years later you may well be out of luck. People pay 500k and more for a second passport. Yours will cost nothing but the small fee.
 
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windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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From someone that has had citizenship for over 15 years I will give one piece of advice. Get your passport right away. Don't take the position that you do not need it. You may well regret this one day. I assume you have someone helping you. There is a lot of paper work for this, and if you try years later you may well be out of luck. People pay 500k and more for a second passport. Yours will cost nothing but the small fee.

I did all of the US paperwork through the Apostille process from various government agencies by myself. My wife helped with the remainder of the paperwork, making copies, legalizations, getting documents locally with all the stamps, seals, etc with the exception of the legal requirement to use some legal translators on the documents from the USA and several documents needed the signature of a DR Notary (All DR Notaries are lawyers but not all DR lawyers are Notaries, a quirk of the DR legal system).

And as I mentioned one lawyer said "I can do that" for four documents and failed needing another lawyer to draw up and notarize those four documents in the very particular form DIP accepted or my first submission attempt would have worked. Lawyers were used in the minimal possible manner.

The only other odd thing in the paperwork was that the receipt for the advertisement I took out in a national newspaper had to be the,ahem, " the original receipt from the home office" and not the receipt I had from the Puerto Plata agent to whom I paid for the ad. That home office was a short cab ride away from the DIP office and the original receipt was easy to get, but that DIP lawyer sure is particular.

As for getting a DR passport as soon as possible, it is of minor cost in the scheme of things, so I will certainly consider doing that.
 
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bob saunders

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Jan 1, 2002
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I did all of the US paperwork through the Apostille process from various government agencies by myself. My wife helped with the remainder of the paperwork, making copies, legalizations, getting documents locally with all the stamps, seals, etc with the exception of the legal requirement to use some legal translators on the documents from the USA and several documents needed the signature of a DR Notary (All DR Notaries are lawyers but not all DR lawyers are Notaries, a quirk of the DR legal system). And as I mentioned one lawyer said "I can do that" for four documents and failed needing another lawyer to draw up and notarize those four documents in the very particular form DIP accepted or my first submission attempt would have worked.

As for getting a DR passport as soon as possible, it is of minor cost in the scheme of things, so I will certainly consider doing that.
I hope you kept a copy of all your paperwork as you will need it for your passport application.
 

SKY

Gold
Apr 11, 2004
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I will give you one example when having a DR Passport trumped a US one. I was spending time in Buenos Aires and getting Money Grams sent there. The first one came and I gave the bank my US Passport. Well a never ending stream of paper work and dumb questions started. I took out my DR Passport, showed it to the teller and she gave me the money.

Just to add, the vast majority of banks in Europe will not open accounts from Americans.........
 

william webster

Platinum
Jan 16, 2009
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I was going to ask you SKY why you considered an RD passport important....

But I see you're speaking to Americans....

Other nationalities have less problems - it seems to me.
I do not plan on getting my RD passport - just continue on my Cdn one
 

william webster

Platinum
Jan 16, 2009
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Yes - as I have said before -
I deal w/ financial institutions that specifically reject US clients

Cdn citizenship is quite benign