Oct. 22, 2007
Now, it isn't mañana, folks....it is more like, ayer!
Y'all may remember that I have gotten birth certificates and marriage certificate back from the Washington, D.C., Consulate. Since they lacked the Consular Stamps, and directed me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I figured this morning that I better talk to somebody at a CR Consulate.
So I fired off an email to the nice folks at the CR Consulate in Houston. (and, they ARE nice folks, btw). I got a bit more than I had counted on....seems like that three month life span on your police/criminal record applies to ALL of your documents. That's right. Birth Certificates and Marriage Certificate AND Police Criminal History Record must ALL have been obtained within 3 months of your appointment at your nearest CR Consulate.
Wait! There's more!
We also must copy each and ever single page of our passports, including the blank pages. Those will be authenticated by the Consul when we meet with them. We had thought we were so clever (OK, I had thought that I was being clever; this wasn't my wife's idea), and had created a power of attorney when we were in CR in July. Turns out that power of attorney is no good for the purposes of our application for residency, and we now need to seek a CR attorney, preferably in San Jose, to designate for our power of attorney - and, we're supposed to have a copy of this person's cedula to submit along with our documents when we do meet with the Consul.
Also, we must have three passport photos with us when we meet with the Consul, and hopefully, they will accept what we have at that time, and forward our documents to San Jose, for the next step.
This means that we now must go have our fingerprints taken here in the Dallas area, because in order to obtain the Texas Criminal Record (TCR) we must submit our fingerprints to Texas DPS, along with the proper fees, of course. Then, hopefully, DPS will send US the TCR, which we will have to then send on to the Texas SOS for their certification! That all must now be done before November 15, when I have made our appointment in Houston at the CR Consulate.
So, in addition to what I have already done, and now facing a serious deadline (we got our certificates in late September, so they are only good until December), we must rapidly obtain passport photos, our TCR's, and get the cedula number (and, a copy of the cedula) of an attorney in CR.....I don't think either of the attorneys that we have dealt with in the past is going to go for this, so I do believe we now have to find an attorney quickly, hopefully in San Jose......
In case anyone is paying attention, we are encountering very different requirements from what is posted on the official Costa Rican Embassy web sites, and from what ARCR, and others have posted on their respective web sites......
wish us luck....
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