There were queues outside Embassies and Consulates on the last day for the descendants of exiles to apply for Spanish citizenship

17:05 El NACHO 0 Comments

There were queues outside Embassies and Consulates on the last day for the descendants of exiles to apply for Spanish citizenship

Thousands were queuing up at Spanish Embassies and Consulates across Latin America on Tuesday, on the final day of the period for the descendants of Spaniards who were exiled during the Civil War and the first years of the Franco dictatorship to apply for Spanish nationality.

Queues of up to 150 metres were reported in Argentina on Tuesday as people rushed to beat the deadline.

The period was opened by the Spanish government at the end of 2008 as part of the Historical Memory Law, and it’s estimated that almost 400,000 children and grandchildren of exiles have applied for Spanish nationality up until August 31 this year. In Cuba alone there have been 180,000 applications.

The deadline was initially set for December 2010, but the avalanche of requests led the government to agree a 12-month extension. Provisional figures up show that more than 200,000 of the people who have applied for nationality have now been recognised as Spanish. The final figure is expected to reach more than 300,000.