Permanentes - how long are they taking?

I'm looking for someone who has ACTUALLY gotten a real actual Permanente issued -- mine was filed on Jan. 15 and am still waiting. I've heard it'll take weeks, months... meanwhile I have some business I urgently need to take care of in the US.

IMPORTANT: I've already heard all the rumors, so don't tell me what you've heard! Tell me if you've actually gotten a Permanent ISSUED how long it took.

TIA,
Merry

It might be in your best interest to get a letter from immigration allowing you to leave and return before your Permanente is issued. I applied for my Permanente card in early Dec and then asked for a letter from immigration stating my Permanente application was under consideration and was allowing me to leave for Christmas and return to Mexico. (Although I stayed up north for a much shorter period, the paperwork said I could stay out of Mexico for up to 60 days.

In my case, my application was approved and I had to go to Guadalajara to be fingerprinted yesterday The immigration workers said that my Permanente card (or whatever it will be called) will be ready in 20 working days. So my guess is that maybe next month I will receive my paperwork (or card or whatever it is called).

Gawd, Pete, thanks for that heads-up. I was worried the temporary thing might f-up my application. I'll just stop waiting and get the temporary hall pass.

merry

Submitted permanente application on Jan 18, four weeks later (Feb 15), received notice to go to Guad, went this week for fingerprinting, etc, and was told the same thing as Pete - it would take about 20 working days for the permanente card to arrive from Mexico City.

Asombroso TexMex.

merry

A totally ridiculous hassle and amount of time. NO EXCUSE for it and believe me they don't give a damn how much they inconvenience you.

Whose country is this exactly? I am grateful to be allowed to be here. I don't think they even have a concept for "inconvenience" that is something we brought with us.

Merry

joec wrote:A totally ridiculous hassle and amount of time. NO EXCUSE for it and believe me they don't give a damn how much they inconvenience you.

Do you have any idea how long foreigners have to wait for visas, resident cards, or green cards from the United States? Having to wait a few months to be Permanente is nothing. I'm thankful they are even allowing it.

Yeah that's right Saege, and to buy their way into the US they have to flash $500,000 not just a mere $120K.

merry

joec wrote:A totally ridiculous hassle and amount of time. NO EXCUSE for it and believe me they don't give a damn how much they inconvenience you.

I guess I again don't understand what you are trying to say, John. The process is going quite well. I had to go once to Guadalajara, and sat in the office for an hour before being fingerprinted and now I need to wait maybe 20 workdays before I pick up my Permanente card locally. Have you ever talked to a local who tried to visit the US? Obviously not.

That's true Pete, the application was not difficult, I was only suffering from the uncertainty of how long it would take, and you helped me with that.

merry

And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US.

I'll get back to you on how long it takes a Mexican to get a Visa. I do not think it's long and it's waaay less than what we pay, for them it's like $ 120 US.

joec wrote:And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US..

John. We are in Mexico. Why would I want return to the US to get fingerprinted. Yes because the procedures have changed, it's taking longer than usual, but we were all warned.

Oh and when a Mexican pays and gets turned down, he doesn't get his money back. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't pay until such time as we are approved and asked to come in to be fingerprinted.

MexicoPete wrote:

joec wrote:And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US..

John. We are in Mexico. Why would I want return to the US to get fingerprinted. Yes because the procedures have changed, it's taking longer than usual, but we were all warned.

Oh and when a Mexican pays and gets turned down, he doesn't get his money back. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't pay until such time as we are approved and asked to come in to be fingerprinted.

For a Mexican to apply for a visa it is 125USD and if he is rejected he does NOT get his money back.
The poor Consular officer has less than five minutes to determine the persons future and accept him for a visa or not
and they do it for five hours a day. Every diplomat has to do turns being a consular officer and sitting in the visa chair.
If you look at ARGO (movie) those are consulate officers doing there job in the big room that looked like a bank lobby
before the embassy got invaded. I get my info from a close relative who just finished a stint doing this in Columbia.
Not the favorite job in the diplomatic corps but a very needed one.

Z

USD 160 per application and must pay this each time they apply. So many are refused it would shock you.

joec wrote:And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US.

Because they want to know who is actually in the country--not who showed up in a US office.

wheels wrote:USD 160 per application and must pay this each time they apply. So many are refused it would shock you.

They refused my wife a visa even though we provided all the documentation needed,when I spoke to them they said she could reapply and they would put a note in her file,we decided not to bother with it.

wheels wrote:USD 160 per application and must pay this each time they apply. So many are refused it would shock you.

Wow it went up....YIKES!

Z

MexicoPete wrote:

joec wrote:And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US..

John. We are in Mexico. Why would I want return to the US to get fingerprinted. Yes because the procedures have changed, it's taking longer than usual, but we were all warned.

Oh and when a Mexican pays and gets turned down, he doesn't get his money back. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't pay until such time as we are approved and asked to come in to be fingerprinted.

I think someone changed my wording from Guadalajara to the US. I asked why the simple procedure of fingerprinting couldn't be done in Chapala instead of INM making people go to Guadalajara and inconveniencing them. I was fingerprinted in Chapala in November.

Zed - I believe the fee is something like $ 125 US for the Mexican Visa. Certainly not $ 3,980 pesos or $ 318 USD like I pay every year to the Mexican Gov't, that's outrageous to say the least plus $ 1,000 pesops to a facilitator (which I don't mind paying).

viajero - My Physical Therapists mother and his two children were accepted for Visas on first try. He has dual citizenship.

joec wrote:

MexicoPete wrote:

joec wrote:And do any of you want to tell me why a simple exercise like fingerprinting can't be done in the US..

John. We are in Mexico. Why would I want return to the US to get fingerprinted. Yes because the procedures have changed, it's taking longer than usual, but we were all warned.

Oh and when a Mexican pays and gets turned down, he doesn't get his money back. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't pay until such time as we are approved and asked to come in to be fingerprinted.

I think someone changed my wording from Guadalajara to the US. I asked why the simple procedure of fingerprinting couldn't be done in Chapala instead of INM making people go to Guadalajara and inconveniencing them. I was fingerprinted in Chapala in November.

Zed - I believe the fee is something like $ 125 US for the Mexican Visa. Certainly not $ 3,980 pesos or $ 318 USD like I pay every year to the Mexican Gov't, that's outrageous to say the least [lus $ 1,000 pesops to a facilitator (which I don't mind paying).

John the 125/160USD (whatever it is) fee is the fee to apply for a visa not the cost of a visa.

Z

I just applied for a tourist/business visa yesterday for a Mexican citizen. It is US$160 and he has to go to 2 interviews. The only detail is that he lives in Chiapas and the closest consulat is Merica or Mexico city. So to get a simple tourist visa to go to the US for a week he has to take a trip to Mexico City and stay there 2 days, the cost for a visa is only a small price to pay to get his tourist visa.
This is just a fee to go as a tourist if you want to stay there for a longer time up goes the price.

Joec you cannot compare what foreigners have to pay and go through to go and live in Mexico to what foreigners have to pay and go through to live in the US. I habe done both and believe me you are way better off.

wheels wrote:USD 160 per application and must pay this each time they apply. So many are refused it would shock you.

And refused repeatedly if they even have the courage to re-apply at a later date. A good friend of ours who is a Mexican citizen from Oaxaca was turned down for a visa to visit the U.S. because she has a relative living legally there and they wanted to know how they could be sure she would return to Mexico at the end of the visa period. This even though she has a large extended family and her own children she is raising here, homes she owns here at Lakeside and in Oaxaca and makes a good living from her enterprises in both places - an absurdity to think she would stay in the U.S. rather than return to her home after completion of her proposed short visit with relatives. She felt she was treated like a common criminal and won´t go through that again.

If the Mexican authorities ever start treating U.S. residents the way the U.S. treats Mexican citizens seeking visitor´s or residential visas, people like Joec will awaken to the gulag and he will be in North Carolina before he planned to be there whether he sells his house or not.

My wife is a French citizen who worked productively in the U.S. for some 40 years religiously paying her U.S. and California income taxes and the only reason she is not a U.S. ciitzen is that she and all other applicants for U.S. citizenship were treated with the utmost disrespect at immigration in San Francisco back in the 70s to the point that she finally said to hell with it. I have lots of horror stories about the arrogant U.S. authorities and to this day, when we return for visits to France, we won´t even consider flying via the U.S. even if the flight is cheaper than the Mexico City-Paris non-stop or even flights via Spain or England. Anything to avoid the U.S. TSA goons.

One other thing. The IRS withholds only 10% of my pension benefits and an obscene 30% of her pension benefits because we live full time in Mexico. This because she is a foreigner living full time outside of the U.S. entitled to U.S. originated pension benefits while I am a U.S. citizen living full time outside of the U.S. as if that made me a more honorable person than she just because I´m a citizen. If you don´t think that is significant, think about the IRS taking 30% of that social security or pension check you may be living on every month with the promise that you will get a partial refund up to 15 months down the line when you file your income tax returns. Explain that to your landlord and ask that he/she defer 30% of your rent for up to 15 months until you get your income tax refund for money you have loaned the U.S. federal government interest free month after month.

The U.S. may be the land of opportunity but there is no reason for the immigration bureaucracy in the U.S. to treat immigrants like weasels. Joec and others who think they understand what it´s like to be a foreigner living or working legally in the U.S. are babes in the woods.

O.K. so nobody has actually received a card yet to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's our situation, the pool boy wants to go permanente, no big deal we're going to be on our fourth FM2. I want to go for citizenship, so anyone have any idea when I can do that? Do I have to get permanente first, and then apply?

I don't think SRE has updated the "path to citizenship" language/rules to conform to the new INM processes yet. A couple years ago, I changed to an FM2/Inmigrante because that was previously the process to eventually gain citizenship. Ironically, that has now (under the new rules) set me back a few years. If I had stayed with an FM3/Non-Inmigrante, my card would have a magic number 4 on the back, and I'd be ready to apply for permanente in April without needing to submit mountains of financial info. Not now since I only have "1" refrendo on my Inmigrante visa. Ooops and sigh.

Rosa Venus wrote:I don't think SRE has updated the "path to citizenship" language/rules to conform to the new INM processes. A couple years ago, I changed to an FM2/Inmigrante because that was previously the process to eventually gain citizenship. Ironically, that has now (under the new rules) set me back a few years. If I had stayed with an FM3/Non-Inmigrante, my card would have a magic number 4 on the back, and I'd be ready to apply for permanente in April without needing to submit mountains of financial info. Not now since I only have "1" refrendo on my Inmigrante visa. Ooops and sigh.

Geez, that's not too good. Sorry.

Here's the deal, I speak Spanish, so language is not a problem. All I need to do is study up on a bit of Mexican History, have a book on that, and so it should be pretty easy I hope. I'm just wondering about how long after I get permanente can I apply for citizenship, or can I just apply now and be done with it?