- Thread starter windeguy
- Start date
My Documents for Citizenship Were Accepted
I think the process is the process no matter what status you have before the citizenship application
In order for me to become a citizen, I first had to get residency. So add that to the additional time needed to become a citizen. Years of time.
There is more paperwork needed to become a citizen.
Windy
sounds like he wants to get residency by Investor status and then - after 6 mo- apply for citizenship
Investor allows a shorter wait for citizenship
Me?
I'd get a lawyer on a 'twofer' deal
sounds like he wants to get residency by Investor status and then - after 6 mo- apply for citizenship
Investor allows a shorter wait for citizenship
Me?
I'd get a lawyer on a 'twofer' deal
In that case the potential paperwork on his Dominican spouse would not be needed but yet I had documents for house and car titles to prove my investments in the DR in my spousal path to citizenship.
Each path is a bit different to citizenship and I never looked at the investor route because people said the spousal route was easier.
What takes time is shuttling birth certificates, FBI reports, divorce and death certificates of spouses if they exist, between various US government offices up to the Apostille process and then getting them to the DR. That was half the process and no lawyer could have sped up. A lawyer here could never have gotten my birth certificate done. It would have been impossible. It would have been $500 US just to get an FBI report - no thanks. The other half of the process is waiting for MOP to review the documents, ask for additional info and review them again.
I had quite the stack of documents legalized , legally translated, notarized, apostilled, etc... With new personnel at the MOPD in Santo Domingo after the change of the PLD to the PRM government, who knows how much that can impact the process. The only things I had a lawyer do along the path had to be done twice because the first lawyer screwed up some documents that needed correcting. Anything that needs to be notarized also means you will see a lawyer because only lawyers can be notaries in the DR. I can only imagine how much a lawyer would have charged me for all of the work.
Picked up my new Dom Passport yesterday, actually pretty quick.
Went straight to Santiago Airport to get it registered at the auto gate which also took only 5 minutes.
So 10 years time now, next renewal should be faster as they have now all naturalization documents digitalized.
Went straight to Santiago Airport to get it registered at the auto gate which also took only 5 minutes.
So 10 years time now, next renewal should be faster as they have now all naturalization documents digitalized.
Did you have to make two trips to Santo Domingo to get your first passport after naturalization? I was told it would take one trip to apply for it and then I would have to make a second trip to pick it up. Ridiculous, but that is what I was told. It can only be done the first time in Santo Domingo since they still cannot figure out how to do this using networked systems.
A week ago I got my "secret code" number for my Dominican birth certificate to be ready at the JCE. So I went and got the birth certificate and took it next door to get my citizens cedula. I paid for the cedula, but was told I had to return in two weeks to pick it up. It should be ready at the end of the month. I wanted to say I just paid, you have all the information, the card printer is 4 feet away, please print it so I don't have to waste more time, but I held back on that. It is just a short trip back to Sosua.
hahaha nothing makes sense here.
I actually went a not normal wAy the first time, got a identification certification from the JCE and with that got my passport the same day I was naturalized. Cedula took 3 weeks as they need to change the status on it including voting information in the back, once done you can pick it up anywhere.
This time passport they had to request all papers to be scanned and uploaded to their system by the JCE, maybe they did not do that 6 years ago because I went that crazy way. If you do it online and make sure all is ok then one trip would be sufficient, they even took my picture from 10 years ago so passport was ready to be picked up.
secret code??? Got my legalized birth certificate within an hour in Santiago.
I actually went a not normal wAy the first time, got a identification certification from the JCE and with that got my passport the same day I was naturalized. Cedula took 3 weeks as they need to change the status on it including voting information in the back, once done you can pick it up anywhere.
This time passport they had to request all papers to be scanned and uploaded to their system by the JCE, maybe they did not do that 6 years ago because I went that crazy way. If you do it online and make sure all is ok then one trip would be sufficient, they even took my picture from 10 years ago so passport was ready to be picked up.
secret code??? Got my legalized birth certificate within an hour in Santiago.
from my point of view no, specially not right now. They are very strict in what they are doing.
Would it not be great if they had the ability to use networked computers here instead of doing the same work over again and again?
Nothing of what you described above seems to be like the procedure at this time. Yes I had to wait for the JCE's secret code for the birth certificate, wait two weeks for the cedula and was clearly told there would be two trips to Santo Domingo to get a passport.
Today I picked up my Dominican Citizen's Cedula at the JCE in Sosua.
It only took 16 months for the naturalization process.
It only took 16 months for the naturalization process.
Someone just asked me what it cost to be naturalized. We only used lawyers for legal translations and notaries.
The coast was $1,616 US. (This did not include the price of a vacation to the US to get fingerprints taken to be submitted to the FBI for
the criminal background check.). I suspect using a DR immigration lawyer to do this would have been just a tad more.
The coast was $1,616 US. (This did not include the price of a vacation to the US to get fingerprints taken to be submitted to the FBI for
the criminal background check.). I suspect using a DR immigration lawyer to do this would have been just a tad more.
I cannot remember exactly either....
but - Yes - a trip 'home' will be necessary in ALL circumstances
I have a lawyer who will quote.... for those interested
but - Yes - a trip 'home' will be necessary in ALL circumstances
I have a lawyer who will quote.... for those interested
Need a quote for a branch incorporation and residency for one representative.
Really interesting thread this. But I still have some questions for everyone involved in this process. I was naturalized in June 2019. I have not gotten my passport yet. First of all because when they did my documents in JCE there was some "mix-up". So after waiting 2 months for them to finish it, the birth certificate was incorrect, as my birthdate was the date when I was "sworn in" as a Dominican, which was obviously incorrect. So then after trying to get in touch with someone at JCE they said that I had to go back there and process some papers again. So then I asked my lawyer who had helped me with that if she could pop by and get the documents corrected, as she did but I still had to pay $100. But I did prefer that to have to spend a whole day in SD and trying to convince people in JCE that they had made a mistake. But anyways, then after that, I went back to try to get my cedula. Then it turned out that the documents weren't registered correctly in the system. So once again had to try to convince JCE to fix this issue. But all in all, all my papers were correctly processed and I had a Cedula and birth certificate end of November. And being holiday times I know that things normally doesn't work that well here so then I felt I would try to do the passport after the holidays in 2020, and then COVID hit, and I've not really had the desire to go through all of that right now.
But from what I understand from the requirements on their website and also from what I was told at the ceremony. They don't require that many documents, just the cedula, the papers that are in that sealed envelope (that I still have sealed, as my lawyer told me that if I opened it, I would have to redo the whole process, doesn't really make sense but still) and my birth certificate. But now I can see some people saying that they require a bunch of other documents from JCE and so on. So which is it?
And then also one reason why I haven't gotten around to do the passport is that I was told that I had to go to SD to apply for it. But a couple of months ago I called and asked about it, and they said that there was no problem doing the application at my nearest passport office, which is in Puerto Plata. Which knowing this country doesn't make sense, but hey maybe they've come around and actually update things.
And then the most important question, do you REALLY need a Dominican passport? And for what?
Because I asked my lawyer and she told me that without the Dominican passport I would have to pay the fee when leaving the country as they don't work with cedulas. This does really not make any sense at all, that although I'm a Dominican national with a Dominican Cedula, at the airport migration will say that they don't care if I have a cedula, they want to see my Dominican passport. Especially being that in some countries if you have 2 passports and don't have the correct stamps and everything you could get into problems.
So if anyone who has been out travelling can answer me that, do you really need the Dominican passport? or is that just a fancy extra that could be good in countries where the DR has some special treaty (for example Dominicans can go freely to Cuba). As I don't have any interest in going abroad expect back to my home country Sweden. Because if it's like that I'll just skip it anyways. But it's good to know. Also, my son has double nationality (my wife is Dominican), and the last time we went back to Sweden 3 years go, there was no issue with him not having a Dominican Passport. So that's one of the reasons why I kind of don't buy the idea that my lawyer tried to sell me.
But from what I understand from the requirements on their website and also from what I was told at the ceremony. They don't require that many documents, just the cedula, the papers that are in that sealed envelope (that I still have sealed, as my lawyer told me that if I opened it, I would have to redo the whole process, doesn't really make sense but still) and my birth certificate. But now I can see some people saying that they require a bunch of other documents from JCE and so on. So which is it?
And then also one reason why I haven't gotten around to do the passport is that I was told that I had to go to SD to apply for it. But a couple of months ago I called and asked about it, and they said that there was no problem doing the application at my nearest passport office, which is in Puerto Plata. Which knowing this country doesn't make sense, but hey maybe they've come around and actually update things.
And then the most important question, do you REALLY need a Dominican passport? And for what?
Because I asked my lawyer and she told me that without the Dominican passport I would have to pay the fee when leaving the country as they don't work with cedulas. This does really not make any sense at all, that although I'm a Dominican national with a Dominican Cedula, at the airport migration will say that they don't care if I have a cedula, they want to see my Dominican passport. Especially being that in some countries if you have 2 passports and don't have the correct stamps and everything you could get into problems.
So if anyone who has been out travelling can answer me that, do you really need the Dominican passport? or is that just a fancy extra that could be good in countries where the DR has some special treaty (for example Dominicans can go freely to Cuba). As I don't have any interest in going abroad expect back to my home country Sweden. Because if it's like that I'll just skip it anyways. But it's good to know. Also, my son has double nationality (my wife is Dominican), and the last time we went back to Sweden 3 years go, there was no issue with him not having a Dominican Passport. So that's one of the reasons why I kind of don't buy the idea that my lawyer tried to sell me.
Short answer, your lawyer is wrong.
My wife is dominican and swiss.
She travels on a swiss passport, and when arriving/departing the DR, she shows her Dr cedula.
She has no DR passport
P.S: well she did, but never renewed it---- the infos on it were handwritten at the time, lol . If it was 1950 I could understand, but it was somewhere between mid90's and the 2000's 😂😂😂😂😂
Lol.. yeah that's just what I thought. But you can never be too sure, as you know there might be something on the computer when departing that says that with that passport the passenger has to pay x pesos, and the DGM officer just says, sorry nothing I can do with that, you have to pay. Or at least It wouldn't surprise me that it was like that.
Thanks for the answer
Thanks for the answer
No - no payment w/o a passport...... I have left many, many times w/o incident.
The cedula is reg'd in the system... you are shown as a citizen.....
As with a residency card, no overstay payment.....NEVER
The cedula is reg'd in the system... you are shown as a citizen.....
As with a residency card, no overstay payment.....NEVER