93-year-old Mexican illegally granted Spanish citizenship registered five more relatives

A 93-year-old Mexican citizen obtained Spanish citizenship by citing a great-grandfather born in Burgos in 1821, outside all the scenarios covered by the Democratic Memory Law (a Spanish law granting citizenship to descendants of Franco-era exiles). With his passport already granted, three children and two grandchildren have applied for theirs through the automatic route peine by the original file.

Spanish citizenship has become a process that, in some consulates, is resolved in chains. The case that has come to light is that of **Felipe Salvador Ruiz de Velasco**, a Mexican born in **1933** who obtained his Spanish passport after arguing that his great-grandfather, **Tomás Ruiz de Velasco Sáinz de Baranda**, had been born in **Burgos** in **1821**, during the reign of Ferdinand VII, and had died in Mexico in **1889**. His link to Spain therefore goes back more than a century before the law he supposedly relied on was passed.

The file does not fit any of the scenarios of the Democratic Memory Law, the legislation designed to grant citizenship to children and grandchildren of those exiled for political, ideological, religious or sensual-orientation reasons between **18 July 1936** and **31 December 1955**. The applicant's parents, Felipe and María Luz, were born in Mexico in **1902** and **1905**. His paternal grandfather, Felipe Ruiz de Velasco, was also born on Mexican territory, in **1857**. The only documented Spanish ancestor died almost half a century before the Civil War began.

## The warning stuck to the file

The processing of this case raised doubts within the Spanish Consulate in Mexico itself. An official recorded the irregularities in a handwritten note attached to the documentation that warned: "Careful! He is not entitled. Cancel soon." Despite the internal alert, the file went ahead. According to sources contacted by THE OBJECTIVE, it was a direct order from ambassador **Juan Duarte**, and the resolution was signed by the consul general at the time.

The mechanism that allows these chains has a name and a date. The instruction signed on **25 October 2022** by the then director general of Legal Security and Public Faith at the Ministry of Justice, **Sofía Puente Santiago**, introduced an extensive interpretation of the legal text. The directive distinguished between descendants of actual exiles and those born outside Spain to a father, mother, grandfather or grandmother who were originally Spanish. In practice, that distinction removed the obligation to prove exile status or the existence of political reprisals for a large mass of applicants.

The instruction also established a general presumption of exile for any Spaniard who had left the country between July 1936 and December 1955. In Ruiz de Velasco's case, not even that presumption applies: his great-grandfather died in Mexico at the end of the 19th century. The eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 itself explicitly limits its scope to "children and grandchildren", without including great-grandchildren.

## The domino effect nobody reviews

With the elderly man's citizenship already granted, the administrative procedure kicks in without additional filters. According to sources at the Spanish Consulate in Mexico, applications from direct relatives are handled automatically. As soon as the consular offices verify that the parent or grandparent previously obtained citizenship under the said law, officials proceed to grant citizenship to their descendants on the assumption that the original grant was resolved legally and in accordance with the law.

The Administration does not stop to verify again whether the parent file from which subsequent requests derive was legally sound or suffered insurmountable irregularities. In this case, **three children and two grandchildren** of Felipe Salvador Ruiz de Velasco have already applied for Spanish citizenship under his file. The first in the chain peine the door; the rest walk in behind without anyone looking at the original documents again.

This mechanism aggravates the cracks caused by the application of the Democratic Memory Law in overseas posts. Consular sources maintain that cases like Ruiz de Velasco's fit the pattern by which citizenship has been granted to **90%** of those naturalized in the Mexico district.

## More than 2.4 million accumulated applications

This is not an isolated case. The same consulate has detected the case of **Juan G.**, a senior Mexican official born in **1944** who was granted citizenship in **June 2023**, based on a grandfather who emigrated during the Bourbon Restoration. The link, once again, goes back to a historical period that has nothing to do with republican exile or the political persecution the law is meant to redress.

As consular applications accumulated worldwide exceed **2.4 million**, the granting of files with irregularities from the outset keeps multiplying its reach. Once the first applicant's citizenship is consolidated irregularly, the standard procedure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Civil Registry allows second and third generations of relatives to obtain Spanish citizenship in a chain, with no subsequent administrative filter reviewing the actual validity of the original documents on which the first passport was based.

The underlying issue is not merely administrative. With the passport come rights, including the right to decide and influence Spain's political future by taking part in elections. Family reunification comes too: each irregular naturalization does not end with one person, but opens the door to their immediate circle. The case of this 93-year-old Mexican proves it: a file that a consulate official wanted to cancel ended up becoming the gateway for five more relatives.

The law was designed to redress the descendants of those who suffered persecution or exile between 1936 and 1955. What is happening in some consulates is something else: an extensive interpretation that has turned the exception into the rule and, once the first passport is granted, spreads on its own through the family tree. The filters exist on paper. In practice, the administrative machinery works as if they were not there.