This archive report was first published on 24 July 2021.
Spain's promise to grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews has turned into a nightmare for many applicants, with over 3,000 rejections in recent months.
María Sánchez, a retired mental health therapist from Albuquerque, spent four decades tracing her Jewish ancestry from Spain, creating a vast genealogical chart that included three ancestors who were tried in the Spanish Inquisition. She applied for citizenship in 2015, but was rejected in May, leaving her feeling 'like a punch in the gut.'
Ms. Sánchez's case is not an isolated one. According to Spain's statistics, over 3,000 applicants have been rejected, while 34,000 have been accepted. At least 17,000 people have received no response at all, with many waiting years and spending thousands of dollars on attorney fees and trips to Spain to file paperwork.
Lawyers representing applicants say they feel officials have had a change of heart on the program, which formally stopped taking applications in 2019. The government has attributed the rejections to a backlog of cases, but critics say it is a clear indication of a lack of commitment to the program.
For applicants, the rejections have left a sense of bewilderment and betrayal. Some saw citizenship as a way to make peace with the persecution of their ancestors by forming a link to their ancestral land. Others had more immediate concerns, seeing a Spanish passport as the best hope to escape dire situations in their own countries.
For Venezuelans, the program was a 'lifeline,' said Marcos Tulio Cabrera, the founder of the Association of Spanish-Venezuelans of Sephardic Origin. His family of nine has received four rejections this month, with the rest still awaiting a decision.
Representative Teresa Leger Fernández, Democrat of New Mexico, has raised the issue with the White House and the State Department, calling the rejections 'worse than if they didn’t offer citizenship in the first place.'
Spain's Justice Ministry has defended the program, saying that it had followed the law in enforcing the citizenship decisions. However, critics say that the rejections are a clear indication of a lack of commitment to the program.
Ms. Sánchez has a lawsuit pending against the Spanish government to appeal her case. She remains hopeful that her case will be reviewed, saying 'I have a strong Sephardic background. I can say I am a Jew. This is me.'
