Hey welcome to Eat, Baila, Travel a channel for foodies salseros y aventureros my name is Jenny.
Kevin today is behind the camera. Today we'd like to share our experience and our tips for getting
your mexican citizenship. I won't say it was a very easy experience because we had some challenges in
getting the documents. And I remember from our research experience how difficult it was to get
it all together. So we thought it might be helpful to share this experience with you all as you're
getting ready. So both Kevin and I are born in Chicago raised in Chicago but raised by mexican
immigrants who raised us with mexican culture and ideals and so we thought what a better way
to honor our culture than to feel like we belong to both. We know that documentation
isn't everything in this world but if you can have something that validates who you are
that's kind of where we come from and one of the many reasons that we decided to get our mexican citizenship.
Because there's so much to know about the process we've decided to break this video up
into three parts this is part one welcome! And we will be discussing how to prepare your documents
for your appointment. Part two, we'll give step-by-step instructions on how to make the
appointment because you've got to make the right one and navigating mexican government websites
are the worst. Part three, is the actual appointment itself what to expect day of and what it's going
to look like how to get ready and be ready for that day. Having dual citizenship with the U.S
and Mexico has some really great benefits which we'll tell you at the end of this video so stay
tuned with us and for now let's jump straight to work. The process of getting a mexican citizenship
is known as a registro civil.The registro civil is essentially the process of registering yourself
as a foreign-born mexican. We recommend before you even make the appointment make sure you've got
all your documents together the first thing you're going to need is the application itself which you
can download directly from a link that we provided in the description below. That application actually
has all the instructions for the process right in there but if you're more of a visual learner
stick around with us so we can help explain the process and give you some tips from our experience.
Number two you'll need two copies of your original birth certificate and not just any copies you need
to provide the long version how to know whether you have the long version of the short version
the long version is going to include the time that you were born whereas the short version
usually doesn't. Number three, you'll need a valid identification with two letter size
photocopies, these identifications can include a driver's license a state id or a passport as
long as it's got your picture and your name. And then here's the very important part you want to
make sure that all of your documents match up exactly regardless of the ones you you choose
to take with you if your birth certificate says kevin john doe and your driver's license just says
kevin doe that's not gonna match up and they won't accept that. Number four, you'll need both your
parents original or certified birth certificates along with two letter size photocopies of each
you only really need one parent to have mexican citizenship. But if both have them great
you'll still need both their information we get this question a lot what if only one parent
was a mexican citizen one parent is fine you'll still need to bring information on both parents.
If one or both parents are deceased you'll need to bring a death certificate along with
their birth certificate. Number five, you'll need a valid identification for each parent
this can include a state id a driver's license a passport or some sort of mexican id. For mexican
id they can use their mexican passport their voting credential or their matricula consulate
again all the names must match or else they won't take it. Kevin had an issue where his
father's birth certificate had an extra initial that was not existent on his current ids so they
would not accept that as the same person it took kevin years to correct his father's mexican birth
certificate there was an error that no one ever really paid attention to and unfortunately that's
really common with mexican birth certificates there are errors all the time so you'll definitely
want to make sure and go through whatever steps you need to to get documents corrected we
tried to get it corrected in the states but because it was a mexican birth certificate
we had to have it corrected in mexico so that was a challenge but eventually i got done and it was
totally worth it number six you'll need a marriage certificate only if your parents were married six
months before you were born if they were married after that point then you will need to have your
father present for your mexican registration if your father cannot attend for whatever reason he
will need to obtain a poder especial or a special power of attorney from a notary public in mexico
or issued by a consulate of mexico why is this necessary well the consulate requires parental
permission from your father's side to register you as a mexican with a mexican government if
your father wasn't born in mexico but your mother was then your mother must attend the appointment
with you or give you that power of attorney number seven this is not a document but these are people
you'll need to ask two witnesses to attend with you the day of your appointment these witnesses
do not have to be u.s citizens but they do need to have some sort of valid id and be over the age
of 18. if you're unable to take witnesses with you the consulate will help you get to volunteers and
once you have all your paperwork lined up you're ready to go make your appointment for registration
i threw in a few tips as i was giving you the application requirements but there are a few
that i want to emphasize and a few additional ones from our experience that we want to share with you
first we recommend getting a really good folder to keep all your documents together where they won't
slip out we like the ones that open up and clip open sticky notes are best friends so if there's
anything missing or a change that needs to be made we write it on the sticky note and stick it
on the document or on the front of the folder our second tip is something that we recommend everyone
do and something we regret not doing if you have a consulate close to you it's worth taking the trip
to have them proof your documents before your appointment you don't need an appointment with
them to ask to review your documents you can just walk in and ask for the registro civil desk
just let them know you want someone to review your documents and ahead of time for your appointment
they will review for you but they won't do the process for you without the appointment so again
it's really worth just getting them to review it and say let have them tell you yes everything
looks good or no this is what you need to fix trust me this is a tip worth taking the time to
take advantage of sometimes we think that we have everything in order and everything looks right
but once you take it to them it's worth having them proofread it so they can tell you what's
wrong we had an experience where we both showed up to our appointments separately we had to
take time off work to do this and there's no worse feeling than walking in ready and excited and then
being sent home without your mexican citizenship remember the american government and the mexican
government systems are very very different and we learned a lot about how these systems work through
this experience so just be aware that there might be some challenges you'll face other people are
luckier and everything looks great and they get it easy peasy but for some of us who have errors
in our documents it's just a few extra steps to take but i promise you it is totally worth it
now here are some of those benefits that we talked about and why we keep saying is so worth it first
first and foremost um it makes it easy to travel between the us and mexico when like when you're
flying between countries you can present both passports and enter mexico with your mexican
passport and enter the united states with the united states passport they might ask you for
both just to make sure they know how the how you came in or how you're exiting the country
but i haven't had any issues whatsoever and i have two completely different names on my passport i
have my married name and my birth name with both my parents last night number two you can buy land
vote or live in mexico without any restrictions as a foreigner or a tourist and for people who
are wanting to reconnect with their roots we are in mexico we don't have to worry about
going back to the us and you know doing a whole another process to become a citizen
as a foreigner i think foreigners have it much harder and and last but definitely not
least one of our favorite perks of having two passports is the perks for travel there are
certain countries that will require tourist visas for americans such as formerly brazil used to
require visa for americans but not for mexicans even though that's no longer the case there
are lots of countries that will have different requirements for americans versus mexicans and you
can just you know use whichever one is convenient for you thank you guys so much for watching i
hope this video was helpful for you but if you have any questions please let us know down below
don't forget to check out the next video in the series so that you can see exactly
how to make the appointment and then how to get ready for the big day
sequence ciao