Cuban nationals are those who have benefited the most from the Democratic Remembrance Law. Regulation that came into force in October 2022 and allows you to obtain Spanish citizenship, the newspaper 20 Minutos reported.
The descendants of Spaniards born outside this country are concentrated in Latin America. For this reason, there are three countries in the region that receive the most applications for the benefits of the above law. In this order, Cuba, Argentina and Mexico are the countries where the most nationalities were processed; the rest were distributed in other parts of the world (mainly France, the USA and Morocco).
Pablo Martínez, for example, is now officially Spanish. He was born 45 years ago in Rosario, Argentina, to Argentine parents. However, his grandmother was born in Cantabria and left Spain as a child due to the civil war (1936-1939). Martínez applied for Spanish citizenship in January 2023 “as part of a process of recognition of personal and family history.” Ten months later, in October, he received his first Spanish passport.
Like Martínez, 182,400 people applied for Spanish citizenship in 2023, the first year the so-called “grandchildren law” was enacted. From October 2022 to October 2024, this regulation will allow descendants of Spaniards who have gone into exile to apply for a Spanish passport. after the civil war and the dictatorship.
Of the applications received in 2023 by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, 51% (91,996) have already been approved and two thirds of these people (57,585), daughters or granddaughters of Spaniards of origin, have already been approved in the consular registers their country of birth and residence are registered.
The Democratic Memory Law, passed in October 2022, opened the second process to date of granting citizenship to people born without a father or mother. Grandfather or grandmother who would have been originally Spanish but emigrated for economic reasons. It also benefits those whose parents or grandparents were forced into exile for political, ideological, religious or sexual reasons.
This law ensures continuity of the process initiated between 2009 and 2011 by the Historical Memory Law. On this occasion, up to 500,000 citizenship applications were registered, but tens of thousands of dossiers remained unresolved.
Luca Chao is an expert on international migration and author of a doctoral thesis on the first process that gave descendants of Republican exiles the possibility of citizenship. Regarding the current process, Chao thinks it is interesting that the clubs and groups of children and grandchildren of Spaniards have achieved “a second historic chance” with their fight. The first trial did not cover the entire dictatorship as it set the date of withdrawal from Spain as 1954, whereas now it covers all descendants up to 1978. “Politically it seems more sensible because it marks the end of the dictatorship.” . Dictatorship,” Chao explained.
In this playoff, there were even more applications in the first year (182,400) than in the first year of the previous process (161,774). Now, among others, descendants who were not yet of age in 2011 and whose siblings have reached adulthood, or Spanish women who have lost their majority by marrying a foreigner, can apply for citizenship.
Both processes emerged from difficult negotiations in the Spanish parliament and, according to Chao, served to recognize the nationality of Spaniards abroad who are children and grandchildren of political and economic emigration, “something that is sometimes not clearly distinguishable.”
Chao denounces in his doctoral thesis that the first process was characterized by the “lack of sufficient resources made available”. to respond quickly to the demands” and “inconsistencies in the data”, which he said was a reflection of “little real commitment to the policy of restoring nationality”.
In preparing his dissertation, Chao found that many of those who apply for citizenship through this channel do not have a pragmatic interest in the passport, but rather apply for it as a reparation measure for their relatives who suffered in exile. “They feel Spanish and claim it is a question of justice,” he explained.
This year (until October), the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those exiled by the civil war and the dictatorship still have time to claim Spanish citizenship. In fact, Martínez is currently advising a few friends and acquaintances in a bureaucratic process that may seem cumbersome and requires certificates of ancestry and apostilles from The Hague, but which, unlike other countries, is free.
What will happen when this door is closed to descendants, Chao explained: “The interesting thing about all of this would be if Spain, more than just a temporary gift or two, opened up a deeper debate about who deserves and has the right to Spanish nationality.” because of the political implications it has: when the migrants who have been living among us for a long time and cannot vote, and/or those who belong to us but live outside.