Besserer Rayas et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2024) 12:47 impossible” by a human rights organization (Becerra et al., 2022). The Colombian state would eventually adopt a procedure that allowed applicants to replace the apostille with two witnesses. By law, to acquire Colombian nationality as an adult, birth certificates issued outside of Colombia must carry an apostille or certification of authenticity (RNEC, 2019). Since 2015, obtaining apostilles for birth certificates in Venezuela has become extremely cumbersome and expensive (Bolívar, 2021). The situation was dire enough for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to issue a communiqué expressing “concern” over the difficulty of getting documents apostilled in Venezuela (IACHR, 2019a). In its annual report of 2019, the commission noted that the difficulties faced in acquiring official documents, including apostilles, limited regular mobility to such an extent as to “configure a violation of the right to free circulation and residence” (IACHR, 2019b). The breakdown of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela further complicated access to documentary evidence, requiring that Venezuelans either hire an often unreliable and expensive middleman in Venezuela, or travel back to Venezuela, incurring the costs and risks that such a journey would entail. Colombian bureaucrats grew increasingly aware of the difficulties of obtaining official documents for the Venezuelan diaspora, including apostilles. Consequently, in 2016, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs first alerted state agencies about the difficulties of requiring apostilles in the case of Venezuelans, followed by Communication S-GAUC-19-013781 in 2019, which declared, “[I]t is well known that there are adverse conditions in our neighboring country… including for acquiring an apostille… [posing an obstacle] to the access and guarantee of rights for mixed family units” (RNEC, 2019). The Registrar adopted a special procedure allowing for two witnesses’ testimony under oath to replace the apostille on a birth certificate in 2016 and then integrated this into the bylaw Circular Única in 2019 (witnesses must be over 12 years old and “capable and have been present at the scene or had trustworthy and direct knowledge of the birth”) (RNEC, 2019). The procedure was couched as based on “humanitarian reasons” and “taking into account the difficulties to obtain documents with an apostille” for children of Venezuelans born in Colombia. According to Article 5049 of Decree 1260 of 1970 and Decree 1069 of 2015, it was already permitted to present two witnesses in lieu of a birth certificate with an apostille (Constitutional Court, 2023). However, many registrar officials denied nationality without apostilled birth certificates, and would only accept the two witnesses after insistence by applicants, if at all. In this sense, the paper bridge enacted through Circular 121 (and Circular Única) reduced the discretion of bureaucrats by automatically exempting children of Colombians born in Venezuela from having to obtain the apostille. This temporary measure was renewed five times through new circulars, extending into late 2020, as the Registrar recognized that the same issues persisted in Venezuela and that there was still a demand for naturalization.5 Although the number of people who acquired Colombian nationality through this special process is unknown, by 2021 over half a million new binational Colombian-Venezuelans resided in Colombia (Robayo, 2022). As with Resolution 8470, the bureaucratic flexibility involved in closing 5 The older Decree 1260 of 1970 allows for two witnesses to be presented, instead of the apostille; as such, human rights lawyers have ascertained that, even without the Registrar’s latest circulars, the presentation of two witnesses may suffice for the procedure. Page 12 of 20