Advice "ley de la Memoria." Letter of Citizenship.

I, a US citizen born in Cuba, am trying to get Spanish citizenship through the “Ley de la Memoria.” When my parents were born in Cuba my grandparents were still Spanish citizens thus making them Spanish as well. I have my birth certificate and my parents birth certificates legalized. I presented those documents to the Spanish Consulate and they told me that I needed to prove that my grandparents were still Spanish when my parents were born by requesting a letter of citizenship for my grandparents in Cuba. I’ve tried to get this through a document retrieval service and they tell me is next to impossible to do this and if the document existed sometimes it can take as much as two years and the Cuban civil registry simple says “we can’t help you.” If I could prove this somehow my citizenship would be a done deal.

Has anyone gone through this? Any suggestions? I’m running out of time.

Thanks…rbr1!

Hello rbr,

The fact that your grandparents were Spanish citizens does not mean that their children would have acquired their Spanish citizenship automatically. This would only be in the event that your grandparents had applied for your mother or father’s Spanish citizenship. From your post I can’t see that this happened.

If your father or mother ( I am not sure of which you are referring to) requests his Spanish nationality via bloodline ( of origin) , once he/ she has it, you will be able to request yours. However not beforehand.

If you did want to request it beforehand, there are ways but these are not so straight forward:

• Via the ‘ Ley de Memoria Historica’. If your Spanish grandparent/s left Spain for political reasons between the 18th of July of 1936 and the 31st of December 1955 and you can prove this, you would be able to apply for Spanish citizenship via ‘La ley de Memoria historica’. Note that this will only be available until the 27th of December 2011.
• Being the grandson of a Spaniard you will be able to apply for Spanish citizenship after having resided in Spain legally for one year.

Regarding the documents, it is essential that you find some sort of ID. Their passport or DNI. If this proves to be an impossible mission then submit their file with their birth certificates as well as the other paperwork.

Hello Marta, was just looking at your reply above, I find myself in just the situation you describe, my Grandparents having been obliged to leave Spain between those very dates, via Tangier and Gibraltar and lord knows where, like many Spanish people of their generation they never really spoke about it or went into any detail. I do have a certain amount of paperwork via my mother, but what it is I do not yet know, more probably birth records etc. My question is this: practically speaking, what are the steps one must take to do all this....it seems rather difficult to find any practical advice and anyone I ask here or in Spain seems unsure, but then again they are not attorneys I suppose! Whom should I contact to get the ball rolling as it were? Sorry to cheekily ask you in such detail, but I should like to look into this and get it resolved as soon as I can.

thanks in advance for any info at all

Joe

Additional facts I just got: I was born in 1960, and my Mother held Spanish citizenship until 1964, Spanish passport last renewed at the embassy in London when she turned 21. So at the time I was born she was still a Spanish citizen. Is this at all relevant? Sorry to be so puzzling.

Thank

Joe