Love, Hope and Borders

Today we embarked on one of the last pieces to tie together Luisa’s dual citizenship. We received her Mexican passport from the mobile consulate in Rochelle, IL. Of course, things didn’t go as quickly as we hoped them to be. When we arrived, we were told that we needed to provide them with another form of ID besides her United States passport. We had to make a last minute stop to the DMV to get her state ID, then head back to Rochelle. (Cue two very annoyed parents. Haha!) Despite my complaining, the whole process of getting Luisa’s dual citizenship was SUPER easy.

The United States and Mexico both recognize dual citizenship, so once Jose and I figured out what we needed to do to obtain Luisa’s Mexican citizenship we made sure to do so right away. Because Jose was born in Mexico, he was able to apply for Luisa’s Mexican citizenship.

With Jose’s upcoming (still no date yet) interview in Juarez, we both want to ensure that if things go south Luisa will always be protected. If for some reason we end up having to move to Mexico, Luisa will have access to everything in Mexico that a Mexican citizen would. It’s also important to us that Luisa grows up knowing about her heritage from both countries. When she grows up, she may decide to stay with family for an extended period of time in Mexico. Now she can do that without any problem. Heck, she may even decide to live there, and she could do that too if she wanted.

To begin the process, we first visited a mobile consulate in Bensenville, IL. They reviewed our documents (Luisa’s birth certificate, Jose and I’s birth certificates, marriage license, drivers’ licenses and our passports) and then provided us with an appointment to the consulate in Chicago. We traveled to Chicago with all of our documentation and brought along two witnesses. A big shout out to my mom and Eric for making the trek with us! 🙂 There was no initial fee, only $13 for a copy of her birth certificate, and then a $32 fee for her passport. Done! Man, what a dream it would be if obtaining Jose’s citizenship was such a breeze like this.

We are proud that Luisa has her dual citizenship and it provides us with reassurance that she will be okay if we ever need to make the move to Mexico.

How cool will it be when Luisa grows up to say that she’s a citizen of two countries?! I think that’s pretty special. 🙂