Mi hijo, el ilegal?

Chirimoya · #1 10-22-2003, 10:38 PM

I wonder if you can help with this situation. I am British, my husband is Dominican. Our son was born on British territory, we registered him there, and returned to the Dominican Republic three months later. When we tried to register him here in Santo Domingo we were told that as he was born abroad we should have registered him at the nearest Dominican embassy/consulate. The following year we were on holiday in the UK and called the Dominican embassy in London. The person we spoke to said that we could have registered our son there, but only up to six months after the birth.

What do we do now? We live in Santo Domingo, I have permanent residency, and our son has been entering the country as a tourist, paying the relatively small penalty for overstaying his visa each time we have left.

We would like him to have dual nationality if possible. Are there any drawbacks to this?

Thanks,

Chiri

Hillbilly · #2 10-22-2003, 11:18 PM

I am sorry but in one of them there was a box with all the things you need to do to register a child. I would not worry, by his Dad he is dominican under the constitution.. I'll bet Fabio agrees..

HB

hansbert · #3 10-23-2003, 12:57 AM

As far as I know sons or daughters of Dominican mothers or fathers according to the constitution if with their birth they acquire the citizenship of another country they may opt fot the Dominican citizenship after having reached the age of 18 years.

Chirimoya · #4 10-23-2003, 11:09 AM

Hillbilly, I definitely missed that information. If anyone has it could they please contact me?

Hansbert, does that mean that by registering him as a Brit it means we will have to wait until he is 18 before he has the option of Dominican nationality? Even if this is our permanent home?

Thanks for all your replies. More information welcome.

Chiri

Escott · #5 10-23-2003, 01:30 PM

What a screwed up situation! Sorry!

Ken · #6 10-23-2003, 01:37 PM

Fabio should be back from his vacation soon.

Chirimoya · #7 10-23-2003, 02:11 PM

Thank you for your concern, Escott! Don't worry though, I am not losing any sleep over it! I was just curious and wondered whether there were any drawbacks to the situation.

If, as hansbert said, he won't have the option of DR nationality until he's 18, where does that leave us now? What status other than eternal tourist or illegal immigrant is open to him?

Chiri

Chirimoya · #8 11-10-2003, 10:12 PM

I was hoping Fabio would be able to help with this question... or at least give us some pointers on where to go next.

Chiri

Limburger · #9 04-02-2004, 08:24 PM

Chirimoya, I appear to be in getting into the same situation as you are. Did you get to resolve this problem in the meantime? Then I would really like to hear what I should do!

PICHARDO · #10 04-03-2004, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hansbert

As far as I know sons or daughters of Dominican mothers or fathers according to the constitution if with their birth they acquire the citizenship of another country they may opt fot the Dominican citizenship after having reached the age of 18 years.

Indee that is the age at which he can claim his Dominican citizenship or you could opt to declare him now in a remote interior province, like many other parents still do most of the time because they lack the few bucks to pay the registry bill, there you can't mention that he was born in the UK rather a delayed registration of a child born at home, it will be very simple always that you can have a "Partera" and several eye witnesses sign an affidavit to that.

Now the big question is: Why don't you let him grow up and decide were he wants to plead his mother land to be, either way he can't go wrong with neither of them!

To become a citizen Dominican law requires that you are of legal age to understand what you're doing, therefore 18 is the age to which it's known to be of legal age in the DR.