Legalize American Birth Certificate

[J D Sauser]

As I said the laws and authentication requirements change constantly and may thus again have changed.

Yet, it is my understanding that lawyers can not legalize... they only can have it legalized for their client by the authorities.
The only ones who can legalize (authenticate) official documents are consulates, Cansilleria [sp?] and State departments.

... J-D.

[Chip]

Originally Posted by J D Sauser

As I said the laws and authentication requirements change constantly and may thus again have changed.

Yet, it is my understanding that lawyers can not legalize... they only can have it legalized for their client by the authorities.
The only ones who can legalize (authenticate) official documents are consulates, Cansilleria [sp?] and State departments.

... J-D.

I'm pretty sure this only means record, as told by my lawyer. Which is like recording a document in the States somewhat where anyone can do it.

I highly recommend calling the local migracion office to verify this.

[J D Sauser]

Originally Posted by Chip

I'm pretty sure this only means record, as told by my lawyer. Which is like recording a document in the States somewhat where anyone can do it.

I highly recommend calling the local migracion office to verify this.

Originally Posted by Alfredo Guzman

What you need to do is have your birth certificate certified at the Dominican Consulate in your country of birth (since you mentioned you were born abroad). It's a fairly recent requirement.

Foreign consulates in each country can recognize documents issued by the country they are in (E. G: the Dominican Consulate in New York can authenticate documents issued by the US government agencies for the Dominican authorities in the Dominican Republic). Basically it is telling the DR authorities by their own folks in a foreign country (consulate) that a particular foreign document is a true, official, valid and thus recognized document issued by that particular country's authorities. This is part of their job.

Cansilleria in Santo Domingo in turn, can authenticate the DR consul's current signature for all other offices in the DR... so the authentication is authenticated
Cansilleria also can authenticate signatures and seals of all current foreign representations (consulates and embassies accredited to the DR and their representatives).
(you may replace my word "authentication" with your "certification" for all the above).

In certain instances and/or some countries, it can also be customary to accept the authentication of foreign documents by the relative foreign representation in the country (E. g: Ecuador accepts US documents which have been authenticated by the US consulate in Guayaquil-EC... in some cases thou, Ecuadorian authorities will ask for the consular authenticating signature to be authenticated by the department for foreign affairs... which is kind of what the DR's Cansilleria does).

Recording or logging a document, foreign or local is a different issue and I think it was not the OP's question.

Again and as always, this is not legal advice and I think Chip's recommendation to inquire with the local immigration office (and a qualified lawyer) should strongly be considered.

Regards... J-D.

[Chip]

JD

With regard to the Consulate having to legalize the birth certificate at a Dom consulate abroad, I was told by the local office that this started around January of 2007 and was the reason I had my own birth certificate legalized in Miami last year as well. However, this same local Migracion office in Santiago is now telling foreigners that it can be legalized in country. I know because I checked in June for cobraboy and also went over the final few items I needed for my official residency submittal.

I think this an important issue to resolve as it can be really time consuming, stressful and expensive to make it happen in one of the Consular sections in the US. Therefore, that is why I think it is best to call but honestly wouldn't be very surprised to find out that one might be given different info based on the day and the person they talked to.

[J D Sauser]

Originally Posted by Chip

JD

With regard to the Consulate having to legalize the birth certificate at a Dom consulate abroad, I was told by the local office that this started around January of 2007 and was the reason I had my own birth certificate legalized in Miami last year as well. However, this same local Migracion office in Santiago is now telling foreigners that it can be legalized in country. I know because I checked in June for cobraboy and also went over the final few items I needed for my official residency submittal.

I think this an important issue to resolve as it can be really time consuming, stressful and expensive to make it happen in one of the Consular sections in the US. Therefore, that is why I think it is best to call but honestly wouldn't be very surprised to find out that one might be given different info based on the day and the person they talked to.

Yep, Chip... it would be nice and logical to be able to have in-country consular authentication accepted locally, just like in many other countries and you may also but sadly be right to suspect that information given to applicants by the immigration office's officers may not be quite accurate.
I had the same problem and even my attorney has been badly informed or informed in contradictory ways several times, even when I was present.
As we all agree, laws are constantly being changed around and communication is not always top notch between DR gov. agencies.

Thanks! ... J-D.

[TheHun]

I thought I'd share my recent experience with our birth certificates.
Me and my wife are hungarians, our daughter is US citizen, we are live in the US.
I had to authenticate 3 birth cert. and 2 vehicle title by a DR consulate/embassy. There is no DR consulate in Hungary and I believe the closest to my old country is in Switzerland.
We send E-mails to all DR consulate in the East Coast from FL to NY around 3 months ago, still no answer. Try to call all of them, no one, repeat NO ONE could speak english, not even enough to give a basic info. We thought that we might need to travel to the closest consulate just to get some info, when my wife called the Los Angeles consulate and BINGO, the lady -her name is Belinda- spoke a perfect english and she was extremely helpful!!!
She said that we do not have to go to Switzerland, just translate the documents officially, and send them to her. The only mistake from our parts was that we did not get the titles translated, so they had to do it for an additional $ 120.00. and few days delay it's all done.
Total cost for the 5 documents was $ 470.00 (+ DHL shipping back and forward) and took about 10 days. I guess if I would translated the titles and no delays it could be done within a week.
So you do not have to go back to your old country if you live in the US, just get it translated and send it to one of the consulate here - you don't even have to send it to the nearest consulate.
If you have problem with the consulates on the east coast, I'd suggest to get in contact with Belinda at the LA consulate, I'm pretty sure that she will help you the same way that she helped us. I wish the rest of our moving would be this easy.

Good luck to you all!

TheHun

[J D Sauser]

Originally Posted by TheHun

I thought I'd share my recent experience with our birth certificates.
Me and my wife are hungarians, our daughter is US citizen, we are live in the US.
I had to authenticate 3 birth cert. and 2 vehicle title by a DR consulate/embassy. There is no DR consulate in Hungary and I believe the closest to my old country is in Switzerland.
We send E-mails to all DR consulate in the East Coast from FL to NY around 3 months ago, still no answer. Try to call all of them, no one, repeat NO ONE could speak english, not even enough to give a basic info. We thought that we might need to travel to the closest consulate just to get some info, when my wife called the Los Angeles consulate and BINGO, the lady -her name is Belinda- spoke a perfect english and she was extremely helpful!!!
She said that we do not have to go to Switzerland, just translate the documents officially, and send them to her. The only mistake from our parts was that we did not get the titles translated, so they had to do it for an additional $ 120.00. and few days delay it's all done.
Total cost for the 5 documents was $ 470.00 (+ DHL shipping back and forward) and took about 10 days. I guess if I would translated the titles and no delays it could be done within a week.
So you do not have to go back to your old country if you live in the US, just get it translated and send it to one of the consulate here - you don't even have to send it to the nearest consulate.
If you have problem with the consulates on the east coast, I'd suggest to get in contact with Belinda at the LA consulate, I'm pretty sure that she will help you the same way that she helped us. I wish the rest of our moving would be this easy.

Good luck to you all!

TheHun

I think your case is a very special one. Yes, in cases were there is no accredited representation which can claim jurisdiction, the nearest or in this case about any consulate may have the jurisdiction to authenticate documents from such countries.

In most cases thou IF there is a representation of the authenticating country in your country of birth, that representation is the one which has the authority to authenticate that guest country's documents.
Some consulates in other countries may offer the service of forwarding documents to the appropriate consulate... but I would not be able to say that DR consulates have offered such services.

... J-D.

[cobraboy]

Thanks to Chip's recommendation, I found an interesting bit of info.

I left a trusted lawyer, who does a TON of immigration work for Spanairds, a certified copy of my birth certificate. She will have it officially translated and certified locally in Santiago within a week. Her charges for this was quite modest.

Additionally, she claims that the immigration office in Santiago can accept completed resident applications and give the receipt needed for the adaunas exemption. She said they have been doing that for 4-5 months now.

We'll see how it goes, but it was very interesting news.