Three Paths, One Family

Some news first: my book, Moving to El Salvador, is now on pre-order for Kindle. It comes out November 27, and it's $4.99 until November 30. This week's post comes from Chapter 5, on the paperwork behind a legal move.

Before you pack a single box for El Salvador, there's paperwork. For our family, there were three different legal paths, all under one roof.

Victor is Salvadoran. What he needed was his DUI, the national ID card Salvadorans use for almost everything, from bank accounts to phone plans. Our girls were born in the US, but because their dad is Salvadoran, they are Salvadoran by birth too. El Salvador just didn't know it yet. And I'm not Salvadoran, so I applied for residency like any other foreigner.

Victor got his DUI at a mobile consulate that came to a town near us, which saved him a three-hour round trip to the nearest consulate. Even so, the card wasn't printed that day. It came in the mail a few weeks later.

We registered both girls at the consulate before we moved, using their US birth certificates. Their Salvadoran passports are still on our to-do list.

My residency took a few months and several trips. My FBI background check alone took more than a month to arrive. By the time I turned everything in, my Salvadoran police record had expired, so I had to get a new one. The lesson: some documents take weeks to arrive, others expire in a few months, and the order you get them in matters.

My mother's path had its own twist. She applied as a Guatemalan, and even after 40 years in the US, she was asked for a Guatemalan passport and police record.

If someone in your family is Salvadoran, El Salvador makes room for you: dual citizenship is a right, and it passes down to children born abroad. If no one is, there's a path for you too. Either way, start months before you move.

Every step, in the right order, is in the book. Pre-order it on Kindle for $4.99 until November 30, and it arrives on your Kindle on November 27.

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