Nationalization

[Alfa]

I would like to apply for nationalization and I was hoping someone could tell me what I have to do to make my Canadian birth certificate acceptable to the authority. Has anyone had this experience? thanks

[More Liana]

Alfa, are you nationalizing a vehicle or applying to become a naturalized citizen?

[Intercasa]

Assuming you have lived here 5 years as FM2 or inmigrado or two while having said statuses and being married to a Mexican. You will need a recent copy of your long form birth certificate and to have to legalized or authenticated in Canada at the Mexican consulate or Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa.

Please note what types of documents they will not authenticate:

We authenticate original long-form birth, marriage or death certificates issued by the office of vital statistics of the relevant province or territory. Note: We do not authenticate plastic, wallet-sized versions of these certificates.

So if one presents this document immigration will request an authentication which cannot be done which then means your immigration application will be canceled as will not be able to comply with their request.

[Alfa]

I don't understand why the need for a "recent" copy of one's birth certificate? Whether it was issued in 1930 or copied in 1999 ( when I got married to a Mexicana), it would still be the same document, wouldn't it? Do they ever change? thanks.

[sue]

I just went permanent after years on an FM3 and than an FM2 I have never had a problem with my short Canadian birth certificate.which I received laminated more than 50 years ago. The only person who said I had to have the long form was Spencer so I went to a different facilitator and there was no problem. I also have a drivers license Dif card etc everyone accepted my birth certificate without question.

[Intercasa]

The civil registry and some courts as well as SRE have told our people they need the long forms to become citizens. For permanente and temporal they really don't care so that pocket sized one will have to be replaced if you want to be a citizen or use it for a birth, marriage or probate. Many jurisdictions will not apostille or certify older certificates and many times they might even keep the certificate. We have seen people apply and then be rejected after months due to old certificates. Why run the risk for something so simple? You might as well get two while you are at it. We don't make the rules up but have seen angry people when they are rejected and angry people when we try to tell them what to do to avoid problems, I guess we can never win and some people can never be happy. We just report what we see, we may not agree with it but government doesn't always use logic.

[Alfa]

I can see months involved here. By the time I send a letter to my province for the new certificate and they mail it back to me

and then I mail it to Ottawa and they return it to me I can see three months easily passsing. I suppose I could mail my letter to the province with a stamped, addressed envelope and ask them to send it direct to Ottawa for me, might work. Any opinions?

the province involved is Saskatchewan.

[daisy2013]

I called a department in the capital of the province, so I then had a contact person willing to help me. I sent them the request etc, the next day by FedEx and the next morning it was in their hands. 3 days later the send it back to me .

Expensive but cheaper and faster then flying North.

[Intercasa]

You need to plan for this as if there is no way to do your immigration papers without an authentication then you will be in trouble, some facilitators don't know this and turn in papers and then get a requirement for an authorntication and if you don't comply in 10 days then you are rejected and then renew late, pay fines and need to show income, if you can't then you must leave the country, all this because someone didn't want listen to advice or pay money. A bad situation and they are getting even stricter, many files they now send to Guadalajara for a second approval after they approve here so everybody needs to be cautious.

[PULELEHUA]

I suppose recently certified or authenticated birth certificates are necessary because there are sometimes amendments made to those documents, including but not limited to name changes.

[Jim Bowie]

A question: why get 2, if in a short time, the second is "old" and then of no further use? What is recent?

[Intercasa]

I say get 2 because you apostille or authenticate the first one and even though the 2nd one will be stale dated of sorts, a new apostille or authentication revitalizes the document and avoids the time and expense of a separate birth certificate request when all that is needed is the apostille or authentication, either way when asking for one a 2nd one is of little extra expense.

Recent usually means issued within one year however at times they accept older documents or they will use the date on the apostille or authentication.

[Natasha]

I say get 2 because you apostille or authenticate the first one and even though the 2nd one will be stale dated of sorts, a new apostille or authentication revitalizes the document and avoids the time and expense of a separate birth certificate request when all that is needed is the apostille or authentication, either way when asking for one a 2nd one is of little extra expense.

Recent usually means issued within one year however at times they accept older documents or they will use the date on the apostille or authentication.

Canada is not a member of Geneva Convention and as such does NOT apostile.

I'm still a little confused as to whether this poster is applying for citizenship or car legalization. When we applied for citizenship a few years back (and eventualy received it) our plastic card Canadian birth certificates were accepted without argument.

[CSOKI]

Do you mean the Hague Convention?

[Intercasa]

Canadians are not part of the Hague convention but a separate treaty and do not need apostilles but need authentication of their official documents for acceptance at the civil registry, courts and government offices. They have been getting stricter recently so be prepared or face a rude awakening and delays and problems.

[John Shrall]

SRE definitely requires a long form birth certificate with Apostille if it's from the US. Translated of course. Getting the birth certificates can certainly take a long time and so you have to look at this process as one of the many steps required to get your nationalization application approved. I was able to order a birth certificate and apostille from the State of Michigan in one online order. In Texas you order birth certificates from the county of birth and then must mail it to Austin to get the apostille.

If you do order a birth certificate make sure to get two because SRE takes the original plus translation.

SRE like INM has rules and requirements that don't make much sense but if you want them to approve your application and grant you citizenship you must give them whatever they ask for.

Our attorney was very specific about what SRE needed and we complied with everything. Some things took longer than others but in the end our applications were accepted on our first visit about 2 months ago.