August 25, 2010

Bureaucracy

We are in the long process of obtaining dual citizenship, and our lawyer told us that one of the items we needed was a criminal background check from the US. She told us that we needed to go to the American Consulate in Sao Paulo. So this morning we went to the Consulate in Sao Paulo, which is about 2 hours from where we live. When we got there they told us that they do not do a criminal background check, and that we needed to go to the Federal Police in Sao Paulo and get fingerprinted there and then the Federal Police would request the background check. So we then went to the Federal Police, which is on the other side of Sao Paulo, and got fingerprinted and requested the background check. They told us that they do not request the background check from the US, and that we needed to go to the American Consulate for that. So right now we have no idea what to do. The Brazilian government is requesting the background check for the dual citizenship process, but no one seems to have any idea where and how to get it done. Welcome to Brazilian bureaucracy. 

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