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SPANISH CITIZENSHIP

Spain offers citizenship to freed Nicaragua dissidents

Spain has decided to offer citizenship to more than 200 political prisoners released by Nicaragua and deported to the United States, the foreign minister said on Friday.

Published: 10 February 2023 16:13 CET
Spain offers citizenship to freed Nicaragua dissidents
Spain offers citizenship to freed Nicaragua dissidents. Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP

The prisoners, among them Nicaraguan opposition figures and regime critics, were freed by Managua on Thursday and expelled to the United States with the parliament voting to strip them of their nationality.

READ ALSO: Why Spain’s new citizenship law is running into problems

“The government is offering Spanish nationality to these 222 freed prisoners given the news that the process to declare them stateless has been started,” José Manuel Albares told Spanish news agency Servimedia, his words confirmed by the ministry.

He said the ministry would get in touch with the group.

Over the years many dissidents from countries in Latin America have found refuge in Madrid, with Spain offering Spanish nationality to some of them.

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SPANISH CITIZENSHIP

Why getting Spanish citizenship now takes months rather than years

Spain has managed to resolve huge delays which for the past years has kept foreigners who had applied for citizenship through residency waiting for up to five years for their paperwork to be processed.

Published: 16 August 2024 12:29 CEST
Why getting Spanish citizenship now takes months rather than years

A total of 243,481 foreigners obtained Spanish nationality through residency in 2023, a figure that has not been that high since 2013. 

More importantly, it suggests the beginning of the end of the historic backlog suffered by foreign citizens who applied for citizenship.

Up to 11,000 applicants waited five years or more to hear back, although the average has been between 1.5 and 3 years, depending on people’s personal circumstances and location in Spain.

Fortunately, the launch of new automated technology which reviews submitted files rather than it being done manually by civil servants is now allowing applicants who previously waited years to receive an answer in just a few months.

There has not been such a high number of successful Spanish citizenship concessions since 2013 (261,295).

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Spain’s Justice Ministry has previously recruited more staff to help resolve the bottleneck, but the ministry headed by Félix Bolaños seems to have found the definitive formula to speed up this process in automation.

“The secret is in robotisation,” Ester Pérez, director general of Legal Security and Public Faith, told Spanish news agency EFE in an interview.

“Several bots”, as Pérez put it, now check the documents that prove that the applicant meets the required requirements, such as the period of residence in Spain (which varies depending on the case), having passed the language and sociocultural tests and not having a criminal record or negative police reports.

A bot is a software application that is programmed to do certain tasks, usually repetitive ones that imitate or replace human actions. 

“A bot doesn’t get tired,” Pérez concluded, adding that they’re more precise, rigorous and faster than humans.

READ ALSO: Common mistakes when applying for Spanish citizenship and how to avoid them 

In a list published on July 16th 2024, immigration and citizenship law firm Para Inmigrantes shared the resolution times of several applications over the past three years, showing how waiting times in 2023 and 2024 have been reduced to six months or less.

“Previously, waiting times of 3 or 4 years were common, and in some cases longer,” Para Inmigrantes lawyer Vicente Marín told online daily 20 minutos. 

“Today we are within the legal deadline of one year, and in many cases the citizenship applications are resolved in much less time”.

However, the lawyer with 25 years of experience with helping foreigners obtain Spanish citizenship prefers to remain cautious about whether it truly is the end of the “bottleneck”, as he always remembers there being delays with these official processes.

READ ALSO: How foreigners can get fast-track citizenship in Spain 

There are different ways you can apply for Spanish citizenship through residency, but the length of time you have to wait before you apply for Spanish citizenship may vary based on where you’re from and other circumstances.

The legal continuous residency requirements for Spanish citizenship are as follows:

  • 10 years as the general rule
  • 5 years of if you are a refugee
  • 2 years if you are from a Spanish or Portuguese-speaking Latin American country, Andorra, Equatorial Guinea, Philippines or Portugal.
  • 1 year for those married to a Spanish national or children/grandchildren of Spanish citizens born in Spain. 

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