Exploring the Revised Passport Application Process
On most days, from Mondays to Fridays, long lines form at the Immigration Department in Belmopan by first time applicants for a passport or others seeking renewals. The process can be frustrating and time consuming and the paper work, voluminous. The procedures were tightened in 1994, following an immigration scandal in which persons, who did not qualify, were getting Belizean birthrights illegally. Instead, bona fide Belizeans were caught in the cumbersome process. Since the beginning of this month, changes were introduced which will make getting a passport easier. Here is New Five’s Isani Cayetano.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The process of acquiring a Belizean passport has been amended by the Department of Immigration and Nationality Services to become a more simplified, yet secure course of action.
Mario Arzu
Mario Arzu, Director, Nationality & Passports
“We had the application process changed first in February 2013 and so we moved away from that JP [Justice of the Peace] and application submitted to where we had the recommenders A and B, and the application. Recall that you either had to have a JP or a teacher or a Head of Department or a Minister of Religion, well we moved away from all that. An S/I was signed in December 2019 that allowed us now to remove that process of requiring both recommenders A and B. We have a simpler process now, if you will allow me to use that term, where the applicant for first issue would still need to bring the identity documents that establish that they are Belizeans.”
With lingering concerns in the wake of the immigration scandal that rocked the Government of Belize back in 2014, fail-safes have been improved to validate the process, as well as ensure the authenticity of the identification document.
Mario Arzu
“We have still the fact that you have to be the person that you say you are being presented to the officer as well as the fact that you are a citizen of Belize by either birth, descent, registration, however you got your citizenship. Those fundamentals remain the same but the process now requires that for first issue, meaning the first time you are applying for an adult you need to present your identity document, how you establish that you are a citizen of Belize, either by your birth certificate or your registration certificate or what we also refer to as your affirmation certificate, whether your parents are Belizeans and you were born abroad, primarily through descent.”
In many cases, however, it is quite the opposite where children are born Belizean, but their parents are immigrants. This was evidenced at a meeting with the Immigration Department at Swift Hall in mid-January.
Immigrant
“I deh ya from when I eight years of age and been to the school in Holy Ghost School, dehn time deh Philip Nicascio was the principal. But all ah my children born here and I apply for wahn nationality from 2003 and up to now I cyant get through. I do work permit and I di stamp from 2016, I just do wahn work permit di other day because I cyant handle that hundred dollars monthly, so me haftu go do wahn work permit because I have family fu send da school. My children da Belizean.”
Director for Nationality and Passports, Mario Arzu explains the criteria for recommendation.
Mario Arzu
“You no longer need A and B, you just need one recommender. That person has to be an individual over the age of eighteen, eighteen or above or a Belizean citizen by birth or descent. That’s it. You no longer need to find a JP. Whether it’s a JP and you want to use him, fine. Whether it’s a teacher and you want to use them fine. It does make absolutely no difference, it’s only that we require that that person knows you for at least a year because when that person is recommending you, when he makes a declaration that he is recommending you as a Belizean national, he also or she also must present a copy of their Belize passport data page to establish that they are Belizeans.”
Together with an application, a passport-sized photograph that is certified by the recommender to verify your true likeness, all documents are then submitted for a first issue. In the case of children, the process is different.
Mario Arzu
“The other fundamental part remains as well for minors because you know that when you’re applying for a minor the applicant is the parent or legal guardian. That process still retains the fact that those fundamental supporting documents must be a part of the application for the first issue. In this particular case, it’s kind of technical where the applicant being the parent cannot recommend because they are, themselves, an applicant. But we have had cases where your spouse is the applicant so I could recommend that indeed that child is your child and I’ve known both you and the child for at least a year or more. In that case, that can work.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
