Argentinian Citizenship

[ElCordobés]

When one does the opcion de ciudadanía--is it one considered a citizen since birth? I have a friend born in UK. Holds UK passport. He has held Permanent Resident status Argentina since he was 5. He is considering a move within Mercosur.

In order to qualify for the Mercosur Visa for many member states (full and associate) one must be considered a national of the zone for 5 years. I assume an opcion (like many jus sanguinis countries) reverts to one's original date of birth and not from the date that the request is approved. This might not matter within the borders of Argentina, but the interpretation would appear to be critical within Mercosur.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

There is an Argentine Embassy in Vienna. Check with the Consulate about what you need to obtain citizenship.

They have no idea.

It is not citizenship, it is opcion.

If you have DNI you might do it there, otherwise, you need to go to Court.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

When one does the opcion de ciudadanía--is it one considered a citizen since birth? I have a friend born in UK. Holds UK passport. He has held Permanent Resident status Argentina since he was 5. He is considering a move within Mercosur.

In order to qualify for the Mercosur Visa for many member states (full and associate) one must be considered a national of the zone for 5 years. I assume an opcion (like many jus sanguinis countries) reverts to one's original date of birth and not from the date that the request is approved. This might not matter within the borders of Argentina, but the interpretation would appear to be critical within Mercosur.

Citizenship by opcion is only a recognition of your previous status, so, it declares you argentine since you were born.

 

[ben]

Citizenship by opcion is only a recognition of your previous status, so, it declares you argentine since you were born.

While this may be true, other countries - who decide and implement their own immigration policy - might choose not to read it that way, and an Argentine court would not necessarily be the court of last resort as how to interpret 'por opcion' Argentine citizenship in the context of the other states' immigration policy.

The foreign country may also conceivably seek the input of a Argentine government source who might not give an accurate a picture as a court would. Even in Argentine history some governments chose to distinguish between native-born and por opcion citizens (whether legal and constitutional or not), so it is not outlandish to imagine a foreign government would do the same.

Should this happen, whether you are right or not is of limited relevance, sorting it out would be a nightmare if even possible.

Just raising possible scenarios of where things might go wrong, notwithstanding that we can assume bajo to be right.

 

[ElCordobés]

They are bound by the Mercosur agreement. As a practical matter, if the DNI has no indication as to when one solicited the 'opcion' I don't see how the other government would be any the wiser. Naturalized citizens' dates of naturalization are reflected on the DNI.

Indirectly, one's status is clear by the number issued on the DNI. 19 for naturalization, 20(?) for 'opcion' and now 50s for native-born. I suspect there will be a challenge to this 'branding' of the quality of 'Argentine-ness' if a challenge has not been made already.

 

[ben]

if the DNI has no indication as to when one solicited the 'opcion' I don't see how the other government would be any the wiser.

That would solve things!

As to the leading numbers, there are some practical reasons for having things as they are. For one, they are issued sequentially, and knowing someone's DNI number is a fairly accurate indicator of one's date of birth. Anybody with a DNI in the low 30's, for example I know to be roughly my age. If por opción numbers were issued similarly, they would get their number from the stack as of the date of registration, not birth, and as such would upset this assumption.

They may well assert that their wanting to be sure that mid-50 DNI is (currently) a young child overrides your wish to 'hide' that you are a citizen por opción, since as a practical matter you'd be treated no differently.