Mexico to implement new rules at border

Travel documents, fees required under 2012 regulations

Mexico News Daily | Thursday, July 23, 2015

Mexico will move forward with plans to fundamentally change its border operations, an official has confirmed, leaving many concerned that slower border crossings into the country could dissuade travelers, workers and family members from entering the country from the United States.

Rodulfo Figueroa, Mexico’s top immigration official in Baja California, confirmed that Mexico is moving forward to implement a 2012 law requiring travel documents and fees from some visitors in order to enter Mexico, a vast difference from the no-questions-asked approach of today.

“We are going to do everything possible to ensure that there are no obstacles,” Figueroa told reporters at the offices of the Tijuana Tourism and Conventions Committee. “We’re going to start applying the law gradually. We know there is going to be a learning period, we won’t be inflexible in applying the law, but certainly we’ll try to educate the public.”

Baja California businesses and politicians have protested the law, claiming it will hurt tourism and businesses, and the Baja California economy. The protests started in November 2014 when Mexico tried to implement it for the first time.

Activists blocked authorities’ first attempt to implement the law at the Otay Mesa border crossing east of San Diego.

Under the new measures, visitors staying in Mexico for more than seven days, or those working in Mexico, will pay a 332-peso (US $20) fee.

Enforcement will increase with a new pedestrian inspection station at San Ysidro, set to open in the coming weeks, according to Figueroa. Head of the Business Coordinating Committee, Humberto Jaramillo, told the San Diego Union Tribune he was not concerned.

“I don’t think there will be an effect, and if there were, we’d be the first to approach authorities,” he said. Others worry the measure will dampen tourism already hurt by negative press about narco-violence. Officials anonymously told the press last year the move was a matter of national security.

“This is more of a security measure,” a Mexican customs agent told El Mexicano. “It’s like saying to visitors: ‘We don’t want to bother you and we aren’t going to block your passage but we want to know who you are and where you are going.”

Others are concerned about the law.

“The idea that everybody has to carry a passport is totally ridiculous,” said president of SIMNSA Health Plan, Frank Carrillo, which serves U.S. workers in Mexico. “Many patients are Mexicans with permanent resident status in the United States. Most of them have green cards; do they have to carry their Mexican passport as well? It’s totally inconvenient.”

It appears the president of the Tourism and Conventions Committee, Miguel Angel Badiola, called Tuesday’s press conference in the wake of Matthew Suárez’s San Diego Reader article, entitled, “Welcome to Mexico, $22.50 please.”

In that report, Suárez gives a first-hand account of Mexican nationals encountering a new effort to establish the program.

“They stopped us because we used the ramp to get through the building that leads to the Mexican side,” Michael Acuña told Suárez. “They asked us for visas and passports, but when my wife showed him her resident card, he still asked her for her passport book, all in English. He asked us where we were going and how long we were going to stay in Mexico.

“Funny thing is, he never stopped speaking in English, even when he saw my wife’s Mexican passport. After we showed all the proper documentation, they let us through.”

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When you fly in you have to pay for a tourist visa.

The tourist visa fee can be waived for short stays in the free zone, flying in you are out of the free zone.

>>>>> The tourist visa fee can be waived for short stays

Up to individual border guards? That's gonna put a crimp in living in TJ and working in the US

sparks wrote:That's gonna put a crimp in living in TJ and working in the US

$40 a year in tourist fees is hardly a crimp.

Playaboy wrote:If INM starts checking and scanning ID's of everybody entering Mexico by land, like the USA does, this might be the end for people living in Mexico as perpetual tourists.  

Are you referring to the people who come in on tourist visas, leave when their 180 days are up, turn around and get another one and so on?  Since that's legal, why would it be the end?  Some folks will never qualify to live in Mexico permanently under the current financial requirements.  I empathize with them since it would be even more difficult to live in the States on their income.

I'm thinking of some marginally solvent folks I've known whose minds just didn't wrap around the matter of getting old....ever.
Nice people; just not very practical.  Musicians, artists, writers........dreamers, and finally, perpetual tourists.

sumofabit wrote:
$40 a year in tourist fees is hardly a crimp.

If they can cross using the same FMM for 6 months. I thought it was required to turn them in when you leave

I am sure it is just a matter of time until Mexico has a "number of calendar days per year" that people are allowed on a tourist visa just like the US and Canada. IMO, This going back and forth every 180 days is simply a loophole that Mexico didn't want to fix (or didn't have the systems to fix) but that will change.

Playaboy wrote:I have a friend that was told by INM, when he entered Mexico, that this was his last FMM tourista that will be issued to him and to get a resident visa.  The INM agent saw on the computer screen all his frequent entries for the last 5 years and said "No Mas".

This issue was discussed extensively on another forum not long ago, with some believing that "no mas" , but when it got down to the law itself, it turned out that it is entirely legal to come and go on those terms without a limit on numbers. This could change, of course. Agents often take it upon themselves to "interpret" the laws.

gringal wrote:Agents often take it upon themselves to "interpret" the laws.

Just go to another crossing or wait until shift change. Never "flip" an old one to a new one at the same time. You could always give the agent some money for their coffee.

Playaboy wrote:Cbob, loophole is right.  It is kind of like the car loophole.  Mexico is closing the car loophole and will likely close the perpetual tourist loophole.  They have the computers to do it.

Gringal, the INM agent, and their interpretation, are the law.  They can give a tourist 6 days, 6 weeks, or 6 months.  Or they can refuse entry.  It is solely up to them.

If that's the case, it's scary for the "perpetual tourists". I can't logically make a case for NOT closing the loophole. Once computers entered the picture, many loose ends can be easily tied up. " Margaritaville " will be only a memory.

I'm wondering if, during my lifetime, babies will be "chipped" with a number for easy government access. Back in the olden days, you didn't get a SS number until you went to work. Now you get it as you enter the world, not just the workplace.

in canada the sin# didn't exist before 1962.

gringal wrote:


If that's the case, it's scary for the "perpetual tourists".  I can't logically make a case for NOT closing the loophole.  Once computers entered the picture, many loose ends can be easily tied up. " Margaritaville " will be only a memory.

Are you suggesting these "perpetual tourists", only come here to drink margaritas . A  strange opinion for you?  Some of the permanentes can hold their own in that category as well.

Margaritaville is a state of mind induced by far more than the drink from which it draws its name.

gringal wrote:

Playaboy wrote:If INM starts checking and scanning ID's of everybody entering Mexico by land, like the USA does, this might be the end for people living in Mexico as perpetual tourists.  

Are you referring to the people who come in on tourist visas, leave when their 180 days are up, turn around and get another one and so on?  Since that's legal, why would it be the end?  Some folks will never qualify to live in Mexico permanently under the current financial requirements.  I empathize with them since it would be even more difficult to live in the States on their income.

I'm thinking of some marginally solvent folks I've known whose minds just didn't wrap around the matter of getting old....ever.
Nice people; just not very practical.  Musicians, artists, writers........dreamers, and finally, perpetual tourists.

It was my understanding that you are by law required to wait another 180 days before coming back. Am I wrong on that or is it just not enforced?

Lady Otter Latté wrote:Margaritaville is a state of mind induced by far more than the drink from which it draws its name.

I'll have to go where you get your margaritas, or whatever.

artesialulu wrote:
It was my understanding that you are by law required to wait another 180 days before coming back.  Am I wrong on that or is it just not enforced?

The usual answer to that is .... find the law in print. Consensus is it's not in print

slainte39 wrote:

gringal wrote:


If that's the case, it's scary for the "perpetual tourists".  I can't logically make a case for NOT closing the loophole.  Once computers entered the picture, many loose ends can be easily tied up. " Margaritaville " will be only a memory.

Are you suggesting these "perpetual tourists", only come here to drink margaritas . A  strange opinion for you?  Some of the permanentes can hold their own in that category as well.

Naaaah!!  As the lady Otter said:  It's a state of mind.  Drinks optional.  Old song, mostly applying to old time hippies and surfers who came down here for a good time on the cheap.
You have that right about some soused Permanentes who start early and keep it up until Passout.

"a state of mind"....
my only recollection of the word was the Jimmy Buffet song about  "wastin' away in Margaritaville", about someone who was continually soused without much purpose in life (except for old men looking for young senoritas).
So, I guess we were almost on the same page.
He also popularized the saying....."that it's 5:00 PM somewhere", when needing an excuse for a drop.

A better Buffet song is "Banana Republics"