The Immigration Thing (yes, again)

I have no idea of the FM2 / FM3 conversion requirements but I can tell of our experience getting a Residencia Temporal visa while still in the U.S. Maybe this will be helpful to newbies like us trying to arrange to move to Mexico.

Keep in mind, however, that the new law states that at least at first, while everything is being worked out, each consulate has the right to interpret the law as they see fit. (At least this is my understanding.) So what we went through may not be the same for everyone. In fact I think I could pretty much guarantee it will be a little different at each consulate!

The documents required were:
Passports with at least 6 months left till expiration.

Proof of no criminal record. We had Department of Justice criminal scans done. There's a company called LiveScan here in Sacramento (they may be all over the country for all I know) that does the electronic fingerprinting and submits them for the scan. The document we got back was kind of a joke, a simple printout in Courier font that had no letterhead or seal or anything to prove it was real, but the consulate took it with not problem.

Income requirement. The numbers they gave us were $1900 for the first person in a household and $500 for each additional person over 15 years old. I can't say for sure what constitutes a household. We are a married couple but our last names are different, and nobody wanted any proof of marriage. Keep in mind that these numbers could change as currency exchange rates change since the original law states the requirement in pesos (actually as a multiplier of minimum daily wage, so the numbers could change if that changed, too). Right now a dollar will buy a lot of pesos so that's to our advantage.

We do meet the income requirement but had a large hassle proving that we do. We use online banking and the consulate wouldn't accept printouts as proof of income. We tried to order originals but the ones we received were once again just printouts that looked exactly like the ones we already had printed ourselves. The consulate wanted to see bank letterhead or a stamp from the bank or something to show they were genuine. After fifteen minutes of discussion with a Wells Fargo employee who swore they didn't have a stamp, we went home and called customer support who suggested we get the statements notarized at the bank. When we called a different branch who had a notary, they said, "Why don't you just come in and we'll stamp them for you?" They stamped them with the bank's address stamp and the consulate was perfectly happy with that.

One interesting thing, the consulate was only interested in monthly income. When we offered to show assets, they told us this was not acceptable to meet the income requirement. The law says it's acceptable, but in the end it all comes down to what the individual consulate has decided they'll accept. They would have been OK with using property ownership (valued over 195,000) to meet the requirement, but we don't own any property in Mexico.

Next requirement was a signed "Letter of Intent" stating purpose of moving to Mexico, source of income, destination, and amount of time we planned to stay. At that point they were interested in seeing a copy of our lease document to verify our destination.

Last requirement was a single photo, 4 cm square on a white background. This is smaller than the standard passport photo so we took them ourselves at home and cut them down to size. No problem with those.

Once we got all the correct paperwork together and took it down there, it took only a day before we went back for our visas! I don't know if this is typical.

So having described all this, I do have a couple of questions that some of you out there might know the answer to:

First, we know we need to go to the INM within thirty days of entering Mexico to get our visa converted to a residency card. My question is, do we need any paperwork beyond the Visa (and the application and photos) in order to get the card? In other words, do we need to prove income again or anything like that? Because I just recently realized the consulate never gave us back our stamped bank statements and DOJ criminal reports.

Second, for those of you with FM2/3 visas, have you needed bank statements, etc to renew those? Because I can't imagine that many of you living in Mexico are receiving printed statements from your banks, so how do you prove income (if you actually need to prove income)?

One more comment. I thought I read in some posts that you could get a Residencia Permanente from the very beginning if you could meet the higher income requirements. But everything I've read says that you need 4 years with the temporary residence visa to upgrade to permanent. Does anyone know any more about this?

I would take everything you showed the Consulate plus your marriage certificate.

I can download PDF statements in color with bank logo

Some people are getting Residente Permanente at consulates

Thanks, Sparks, but is your reply knowledge or speculation? Because I don't want to go to the consulate to try to retrieve my stamped bank statements etc if I don't need to.

I thought the reason we had to get it all done at the consulate here was to streamline the process for the INM in Mexico, hence no double-checking of all the same docs.

My statements (Wells Fargo) only downloaded in black and white, and the statement copies they sent me in the mail were black and white. It was impossible for me to obtain the color copies that the consulate wanted. Probably different for different banks.

sambrit10:

You were on the right track with your comments about things possibly being different at various Mexican Consulates. The reason lesson in those comments is that: the only consistency in Mexico is its inconsistency!

Given the current state of affairs and casting doubt on what was reported in THE GUADALAJARA REPORTER or the reports out of any INM office, I would think the prudent thing would be to try and be prepared for any twist or turn that might be thrown at you. In all of our years of traveling to Mexico, we have found it best to assume nothing and be prepared for surprises on a daily basis. One's opportunity for stress is reduced and your life enriched by learning something new!

If you don't have them and they want them once you are in Mexico .... what ya gonna do. It's impossible to speculate what individual Immigration offices will want ... so be prepared for the worst

Good point, Sparks. Maybe we should trudge on back and see if they still have our docs...

I'll ask the question again, have any of you needed to prove income at the INM? And if so, what did you use? From other things I'm reading I'm thinking that printed copies would be fine for that purpose. I hope so, because if they end up wanting 6 or 12 months of copies, we won't have that anyway.

For a new Temporal they want 6 months worth of statements. I'm renewing next month and am supposedly not required to show financials but out local INM wants 6 months. They say we are under the old income level and not the new one ... so why would they want a stack of paper ?? Who knows

We've been here over 7 years and have NEVER had to prove income to renew our visa.

Things that I have found handy to have:

Passport
Birth certificate
Marriage license
Divorce papers
Bank statements (The local immigration is fine with printed off computer)
Car Title
Extra checks and deposit slips (hard to get shipped in)
Car registration
Some kind of Voip phone system (Magic Jack, Vonage, Skype)
Boost your daily ATM limit and tell the bank you will be in MX
I have a couple bank accounts in the US. I use one only for ATM withdrawals. I move the money and hit the ATM. Cloning cards here is a national past time.
If you have time and not much time left on your passport, renew it. That gives you 10 years and they are a PITA to do here. You can renew anytime.
If you don't have a GPS with MX maps, buy one. Invaluable here.

That was a good list, especially re telling the bank you'll be in Mexico. First time we tried to charge a large item on our Mastercard, there was a big kerfuffle involving calls to the U.S. etc.
Also, while you're still in the U.S., you may want to open a bank account with a bank that has "links" to a Mexican bank, since you can't open accounts in the U.S. once you're here (as far as I know). When you get here, open an account with that "linked" Mexican bank. That way, you can easily transfer funds online, use the ATM machine without extra fees, etc.

Re checks: This is a cash society. Hardly anyone will take checks. They will take credit cards, but you can get a nice discount at some places if you pay cash instead.

I dunno about the GPS, but buy some good maps. You'll need them.
Good luck!

jrm30655 wrote:Things that I have found handy to have:

Passport
Birth certificate
Marriage license
Divorce papers
Bank statements (The local immigration is fine with printed off computer)
Car Title
Extra checks and deposit slips (hard to get shipped in)
Car registration
Some kind of Voip phone system (Magic Jack, Vonage, Skype)
Boost your daily ATM limit and tell the bank you will be in MX
I have a couple bank accounts in the US. I use one only for ATM withdrawals. I move the money and hit the ATM. Cloning cards here is a national past time.
If you have time and not much time left on your passport, renew it. That gives you 10 years and they are a PITA to do here. You can renew anytime.
If you don't have a GPS with MX maps, buy one. Invaluable here.

Good list,
I've also found that the ability to speak Spanish is invaluable here.

Thanks for the list, jrm30655. We really didn't want to carry those difficult-to- replace documents down here with us in the car, but maybe we should if they'll be needed. I do have scanned copies of all of them but I know for things like marriage certs they usually don't want copies.

We will be visiting the States frequently (kids still here) so maybe I'll bring them back on the plane on our next trip there.

We did go to B of A (where I've had an account forever) and opened a savings account that isn't linked to our debit cards, so we can keep a low balance in the checking account to safeguard against ATM fraud, which I know is a big problem. They told us they're partnered with Santander bank in Mexico and if we open an account there it would be easy to transfer funds, no ATM fees, just like Gringal described. Now the challenge will be finding a Santander branch in the area. Heard there might be one in Joco. Does anyone know?

For your birth certificate and marriage certificate you will need Apostilled copies.

RE: GPS

We have a Garmin with between 10K and 15K Mexican miles on it and we find it invaluable once one learns all the tricks and idiosyncrasies. Just prior to our trip last August, I did a full update of the North American maps which now includes Mexico. The improvements were very noticeable and very welcome. Actual address numbers are still problematic but far less of the directing the wrong way down one way streets. They have also added many points of interest such as hospitals, grocery stores, some restaurants, some hotels and such.

David, do you have apostilled copies of your vital docs?

If so, how did you get them?

More to the point, what have you needed them for?

I don't know of any need right now so I'm thinking we'll cross that bridge when (if) we come to it.

David wrote:We've been here over 7 years and have NEVER had to prove income to renew our visa.

Why is that? Do you live outside Lakeside or Jalisco?

We've been here 10 years and ALWAYS had to prove last 3 months bank statements.

joec wrote:

David wrote:We've been here over 7 years and have NEVER had to prove income to renew our visa.

Why is that? Do you live outside Lakeside or Jalisco?

We've been here 10 years and ALWAYS had to prove last 3 months bank statements.

For my No Inmigrante (old FM-3), I've never had to prove income. Don't know about the old FM-2.

Carry Bean, I have had to provide it 3 times, 1st year on FM3, renewal @ year 5, and conversion to New, Inmagrante this year. Since I was using Mago, 1st 3 years, Intercasa ever since, I assume they wanted it for the just in case scenario.

The financial income requirement is kind of a joke, unless you don't have finanacial assets. Totally fixed income from social security can creat some nervous times.

It is really easy to play the income game, without disclosing much info. Transfer funds between accounts, then withdraw and redeposit.

Jim W wrote:Carry Bean, I have had to provide it 3 times, 1st year on FM3, renewal @ year 5, and conversion to New, Inmagrante this year. Since I was using Mago, 1st 3 years, Intercasa ever since, I assume they wanted it for the just in case scenario.

The financial income requirement is kind of a joke, unless you don't have finanacial assets. Totally fixed income from social security can creat some nervous times.

It is really easy to play the income game, without disclosing much info. Transfer funds between accounts, then withdraw and redeposit.

I started in 2010 so maybe something changed in the time when you began with an FM-3 because I never had to. I'm just glad I don't have to renew until next summer when all these things should shake out.

joec wrote:

David wrote:We've been here over 7 years and have NEVER had to prove income to renew our visa.

Why is that? Do you live outside Lakeside or Jalisco?

We've been here 10 years and ALWAYS had to prove last 3 months bank statements.

You have no memory at all, which explains a lot. You knoe I live in Ajijic. You've seen me and accused me of "looking very old." I repeat, in 7 years I've never had to show proof of income.

David wrote:

You have no memory at all, which explains a lot. You knoe I live in Ajijic. You've seen me and accused me of "looking very old."

Sounds like John is as offensive in real life as he is online.

gringal wrote:That was a good list, especially re telling the bank you'll be in Mexico. First time we tried to charge a large item on our Mastercard, there was a big kerfuffle involving calls to the U.S. etc.
Also, while you're still in the U.S., you may want to open a bank account with a bank that has "links" to a Mexican bank, since you can't open accounts in the U.S. once you're here (as far as I know). When you get here, open an account with that "linked" Mexican bank. That way, you can easily transfer funds online, use the ATM machine without extra fees, etc.

Re checks: This is a cash society. Hardly anyone will take checks. They will take credit cards, but you can get a nice discount at some places if you pay cash instead.

I dunno about the GPS, but buy some good maps. You'll need them.
Good luck!

It wasn't checks as much as deposit slips. I work for several people. Most pay me with PayPay or direct deposit. I have one that sends me checks.

Now, I'm using counter deposit slips. They will only send checks/deposit slips to my bank address which is in Laredo. Laredo won't forward them because they are in a box. Catch 22.......

So, every 6 months, I call the bank and talk one of the clerks into sending me a handful of generic deposit slips. They always offer to send me printed ones free. Try explaining all this to a 20 year old high school grad.