“In response to high demand”, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Buenos Aires reports on its website that two months ago there was a change in rules to reserve appointments online.
That from now on citizenship and passport procedures They will be by appointment only, and that The possibility of accessing a shift will be “without notice”twice a week, “between 10 and 10.15”, so those interested will have to check the system e-konsulat.
With the background of how difficult it is to get a turn for Italian and even Spanish citizenship, in recent months interest in obtaining Polish citizenship in Argentina has been reactivated. But he tempo to want “to be Polish”In reality, it is marked by the economic crisis.
It is a red passport much less massive than the one so desired pink passportdue to the smaller number of Polish descendants than Italian (or Spanish) descendants in these lands, and due to the stricter requirements that limit obtaining that recognition from Poland.
But for Argentines who have the papers, “being Polish” is a procedure fasteralthough More expensivethan the one that implies becoming Italian or Spanish. And it offers the same benefits.
Clarion learned new stories of those who, as “safe”, “to emigrate” or to “honor the past”recently rummaged through boxes for yellowed, almost disintegrated documents to prove the Polish roots behind their family genealogy.
Also to specialists in advising, administratively or legally, to whom the idea is sparked and, as they promote, “in a year they can be Polish”.
Be Polish “just in case”
“I want to have her in case at some point I want to leave the country. If I don’t leave, nothing happens. But I think it’s important to have it. Furthermore, it is a very respected citizenship that gives you the possibility of entering many countries,” he tells Clarion Nicholas Kogut.
He is from Córdoba, he is 22 years old and he sends a first black and white photo via WhatsApp in which, perhaps, you can already see why they could call him the Polish.
“My great-grandfather arrived. He didn’t want to come, but his brother did, but he repented and came. My dad also told me that he was scammed. At that time they promised land and work to immigrants. They sent him to a mountain and with nothing. When he arrived here he dedicated himself to the field and did that for the rest of his life,” he says.
Like many other descendants of Poles, Nicolás does not know exactly “where” the relative who will give him citizenship came from, “or what he did there.” But in March he was able to start the process.
“We see that the growing interest in Polish citizens has intensified since the pandemic and has to do with a context of economic instability and the impossibility of planning in the medium or long term,” Mariano Laski, in charge of ciudadaniapolaca.com.ar, explains to this newspaper.
He perceives himself more as an “advisor” than as a manager and assures that he does not have clients who want to process it to live in Poland, but rather to emigrate to Spain. Answer the first frequently asked question below: “It is not necessary to take a Polish exam to process it”.
“There are those over 40 who want to have it like insurance; those between 20 and 30 with the idea of living an experience in a community country; those who process it to give a tool to their minor children, which they would use according to their personal, work, professional project,” he describes.
Within these groups, the majority want citizenship “with a utilitarian criterion”he points out, and some also do so for an emotional reason: “Honor your ancestors”.
Laski detects that “living more peacefully” is another objective, close to “improving the quality of life”, and that this is not necessarily due to an economic issue: “We have examples of clients who emigrated and the high standard of living they have is similar to what they had in Argentina”.
What is “insurance” citizenship? He defines it like this: “Tomorrow they will lose their jobs here and it will be very easy for them, being legal in Europe, to get a new job.”
It is estimated that in Argentina there are between 500,000 and 700,000 descendants of Poles. The majority are Misiones, Chaco and Buenos Aires.
Globally About 22,000 applications are submitted per year to obtain Polish citizenship. Argentina is among the three countries that present the most folders (fight with Israel and the United Kingdom).
The Buenos Aires Embassy must respond to the procedures of Polish descendants in Argentina, but also to those of Uruguay and Paraguay. Hence lies the shortage of local shifts.
Being Polish “to emigrate”
The grandparents of Darío Vallejos (Argentine, 47 years old, who lives in Resistencia, Chaco) were shipped by their parents to South America “in search of another life.” A better. From what he saw in their documents, they arrived in Brazil and from there they traveled to the Chaco town of Sáenz Peña, where they settled in 1935.
“My grandfather was a farmer, he was born in 1919 (it appears that in Mola). It was Ukrainian, but since it was a small border town, it was invaded by Poland. He got very angry if someone told him he was Polish.“, Dario tells Clarion. On December 15 he sent the papers to Laski to now become Polish.
“The first reason is that we like to travel and by belonging to the European community, we would have fewer procedures to enter some countries. My son works in the United States, and very soon he has to renew that visa, which always has its complications and bureaucracies,” Explain.
Beyond tourist comfort, wants to emigrate.
“I’m tired of the fact that one works and we spend all our time paying taxes to maintain other people’s luxuries. We would like to try, especially my son, to go live somewhere else. Several of us are already processing it; also my brother, his son and his granddaughter. My cousin, for financial reasons, couldn’t do it yet.
Unlike the procedures for other citizenships, explains Laski, in the case of Polish “in principle it is something purely administrative, the deadlines are usually shorter than the Italian one, which can sometimes take years due to judicial instances.”
What papers are used to obtain Polish citizenship?
Although there is no official data on how many Argentines applied for Polish citizenship or how many were granted in the last year, the file that is created with a new folder in the Mazowiecki urząd Wojewódzki wydział ds cudzoziemców (which is the Immigration Department, Warsaw Court) It is assigned a file number that keeps an annual count and gives a magnitude of the demand at a global level.
It is estimated that there are some 20 thousand delay folders in that court, which are divided among six judges.
“That is the only entity that allows determining whether a person is or is not a Polish citizen. Once obtained, the passport can be obtained at any embassy in the world,” explains Jonathan Jablonski, director of mipasaportepolaco.com.
The citizenships of descendants who never lived in Poland must be processed in that court. If they lived in another Polish city, they can present them there and everything can be resolved in much less than a year. “Even in three months”brand.
While talking to Clarion, Jablonski puts a customer on hold on a call. Only from Argentines he receives more than 100 new queries per day.
He takes difficult cases, with atypical legal bases. He is the country’s leading specialist in these Polish issues and also has his own offices in Canada and Poland.
“A passport is the best insurance you have for your rights”, says. He has four passports and is about to process the fifth.
There are fewer cases of Argentines who have double European ancestry, one through the mother’s line and the other through the paternal line. Today they are trying in all ways.
“Those who have Polish and Italian ancestry, go for Polish, because The Italian consulates here are full of folders. On the other hand, – he details – you can present everything directly in Poland with an advisor without having to travel or go to the Embassy here to make an appointment. The citizenship Italian is easier to put together the folder, but get a turn to get it approved is mission Impossible”.
Polish, at a technical-legal level, is the strictest citizenship to manage (another obstacle: women can only transmit citizenship to their children born after January 19, 1951). But, again, if you have the papers (or if you get them) and you decide to invest, is the most agile.
“There are people who have the blood right Polish. His father was Polish, then he comes, and all the dates are fine. But you ask them: ‘Do you have any paper proving that your grandfather was Polish?’. And they do not have. We can do searches in all the countries that were part of Poland,” the expert differentiates.
The most complicated thing is the story. Everything south of Vilnius, which is today the capital of Lithuania, was Polish territory. Also everything that was west of Minsk, which is the capital of Belarus; like everything that was the western region of Ukraine.
A Polish first and last name is not enough to start that search.
“Knowing the town is essential (it can be found in the death certificate or through family histories or through some Argentine documents), because in Poland the archives are organized at a local level, not nationally. There are people who tell me: ‘Galicia Era’ (in Polish, Galicja), which is like saying ‘Patagonian era‘. We also need the date of birth or a range of 5 or 10 years in which that relative is believed to have been born.”
There is more optional, non-mandatory data that helps. One is religion, to know if the search should be done, for example, in synagogues. For his expertiseand although there are some “ambiguous” surnames (like his, which is secular), he already realizes only whether that ancestor was Orthodox, Jewish or Catholic.
The names of the parents of the Polish person who emigrated are also useful, to limit the number of homonyms; and the year of arrival in Argentina is used, “to search for data in immigration records.” A birth certificate is not enough in Poland.
At that point, 1920 is a key date.
How much does it cost to apply for Polish citizenship?
“Poland as a state did not exist until 1918. It existed for approximately 123 years, then it ceased to exist for a long time, and when the First World War ended, Poland was reborn.. In 1920 the first Polish citizenship law was enacted., which said that everyone who lived in its territory received it. You could be ethnically Russian, German, Ukrainian, but legally you were polish. On the other hand, you could be ethnically Polish but you left before 1920… so you did not receive Polish citizenship.”
A “basic” Polish citizenship, which means that the person has proof of Polish ancestors or does not require too much legal work, costs from 2,600 euros per person.
In this world of advisors and really old papers, it all starts with a free consultation. If there is an agreement, a contract is signed and the number of people who will begin the process, the deadlines for the process and the price are agreed upon. A third of the total is paid there.
On average, Argentine clients take three months to take these documents to the advisors, who then compare and send them to Poland, with the translations into Polish from a public translator who is among those authorized by each court.
In the next step, legal documents are drawn up and court fees are paid. It is from the presentation in the central court of Warsaw that the year is counted until “to be Polish”.
