The president of the National Registry of Natural Persons (RNPN), Fernando Velasco, assured the Salvadoran diaspora that with the reform of article 4 of the Special Law for the Issuance of the Unique Identity Document (DUI) abroad, there will be an economic benefit and time savings for the Salvadorans residing out of the country. The law was approved last Tuesday in the plenary session 41 of the Salvadoran Congress.
“The RNPN has offices in 21 cities in the United States through the consulates. Until now, not all of them have printing centers. This has meant for many years that the citizen had to travel to the cities where there are consulates, request their DUI and, later, in a period of 10 to 15 days, have his document sent to him so that he could return to the consulate to pick it up” — he explained.
For Velasco, the previous process “has implied great economic expenses in transport and, most importantly, the time of the Salvadorans.”
He explained that so far, the compatriots with the least difficulty in obtaining their DUI are those who live in the six cities where the RNPN has printing centers, which are Long Island (New York), Los Angeles (California), Silver Spring (Maryland ), Woodbridge (Virginia), Dallas (Texas) and Elizabeth (New Jersey).
“Salvadorans who live near the consulates of these cities do not have a problem, since they only arrive and, in a period of 20 to 30 minutes, they receive their DUI. The difficulty has been for those who live remotely from these areas, who have lost days of work, which we all know represents a significant economic cost for the diaspora” he considered.
According to Velasco, the purpose of the recently approved reform is to help the diaspora obtain a DUI quickly and cheaply. “The reform will allow the postal service to take the DUIs to the homes of compatriots through agreements that they also plan to generate with postal service companies” — he explained.
Velasco explained that through postal services, Salvadorans who live specifically in the United States must first request their DUI at the nearest consulate, and then the RNPN printing centers that exist in the North American country will be in charge of issuing the document, which will later be sent to the place of residence of the applicant. “Definitely, this will be a more efficient service,” said the official.
As for the compatriots who live in Europe, Velasco reported that between next March and April, a printing center will be set up in Seville, Spain, which will initially be in charge of printing the DUIs of those who reside in different European cities, while other establishments are opened in other areas.