Pathway to Permanent Residency
Mexican Consulate in Miami
I remember when we first started exploring our options, I was searching everywhere for advice as to whether to choose Temporary or Permanent and how exactly to go about it. We are now waiting for our Permanent Residency to be finalized so I thought it would be helpful to others to share our experiences.
First I have to recommend hiring a professional. I know you will see many people saying it isn’t necessary, but if you delve deeper you will also hear many complaints about all the obstacles they faced and the time it took them to navigate through the process. I have always been a strong believer that it is best to hire a professional! Some people think it shows their own personal incompetence or others are too cheap, but to me it is the way of the world; hire those who are best qualified and help keep them working. That said we hired Milly Arceo with Legally en Mexico.
We met Milly two years ago when we were first considering moving to Mexico and she advised us, since we were both retired, to go straight to Permanent Resident status. A year later we again met with Milly to start the process. We had a few detours along the way. The original idea was to sell our home then visit the Mexican Consulate in Miami on our way to Mexico. Literally, on the way to Mexico the sale of our home fell through! We continued as planned and moved to Mexico on a tourist visa. The house finally sold and closed all while we were in Mexico. We made arrangements to fly to Miami and visit the Mexican Consulate. Our appointment was scheduled for mid-march, which was right when Covid-19 first exploded in the U.S. and everything shut down.
Thanks to Milly’s help we applied and were given a 6 month extension on our tourist visa, and were able to stay on a humanitarian visa until January 9th, 2021. On January 6th we boarded a flight to Miami with our appointments set for January 7 at 9 and 9:30. I should add that you can choose from a number of Mexican Consulates, but you have to leave Mexico to start the process. We did a lot of research and found that each Consulate follows the same rules and regulations but there were slight differences in timing and requirements. For us, we made our final decision based on the shortest flight, and the opportunity to see my childhood friend.
A few tips: don’t expect answers to questions via email ahead of time. You most likely will get standard answers and links to the information. If you do have questions, put them all in one email. When we emailed a few consulates Belize was one that provided the most information and were the most personal in their email reply, but warned us the land borders were closed so they were probably not an option. Another tip is be over-prepared - have your copies of everything, and if you wonder if they will want something, just bring it. In your packet be sure to include a recent passport-size photo. They didn’t need everything we brought, but our interviewer was impressed by how prepared we were. Somewhere in the move from our house we lost our marriage license. So I included a copy of my wedding invitation from 30 years ago, photos from our wedding and joint tax returns. He laughed, but it showed we were serious about wanting to be Permanent Residents and diligent in our preparations.
I have to say the gentleman we had at the Miami Mexican Consulate couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. The entire process was wonderful and we felt extremely safe, They were taking all the necessary precautions to safeguard against covid. Our two appointments were scheduled for 9 and 9:30, we arrived early and our first stop was at the security guard who checked us in, took our temperature and directed us to go to the 3rd floor to wait for our appointment. When we got to the 3rd floor we were given a paper and sent back down stairs to pay our $40 per person to process the application. With our receipt in hand we returned to the 3rd floor and, to our surprise, we were allowed to do our interview together. He looked over the huge stack of papers, asked a few questions and decided, since we were both retired, he would process us simultaneously.
Once he put our individual packets together we were fingerprinted, another picture taken and our passports handed over. We were told to return at 1PM to retrieve our passports with visa. The entire process for both of us took about 15 minutes. Again, because we had everything done and copies made.
We returned at 1PM only to find out that the computers in Mexico City were down and yes, we had indeed been approved but the visa was not printed yet. We returned the next morning at 9AM to receive our passport with our new visa attached in the back where the spaces for visas are.
Another point to make, when you fly back into Mexico and go through immigration be sure to go through the correct line, the one for Mexican residents and not the tourist line. Have your passports OPEN to the page with your new visa. Your passport and immigration form, the one you get on the airplane, will both be stamped showing the day you entered and that you now have 30 days to start the paperwork at Immigration here in Mexico.
I should add another interesting side-note to our story. The immigration office in Playa del Carmen has been closed for the last month due to the holidays and an office move. Luckily it was back open within a week of our return.
One of the best things about having Milly is that she prints out all the forms you need and helps you along the way. She did the same thing when we needed to extend our tourist visa. She also saves you a few trips to the Immigration office. During the Covid Pandemic that is a huge plus. We filled out the forms, signed all the papers, handed her our passports, paid the taxes and she delivered them to Immigration for us.
Remember, the trip to the Mexican Consulate is just the start of the process, albeit critical.Once the visa has been issued, you still have to obtain your Permanent Resident card from the immigration authorities in Mexico. Now we wait for Immigration to issue the card, get fingerprinted and finally get our CURP number With a CURP number we will be able to buy and register a car, open a bank account, etc.
The last step, taken at a different government office, will be to apply for our INAPAM card, which is basically a Senior Citizen card, allowing us to take advantage of the numerous discounts available to seniors in Mexico.
All in all this has been a pleasant experience, I would say we stressed and worried over nothing. A smile and even a few words in Spanish will be appreciated and everything you need to have is clearly spelled out on the government website, along with the list of all Mexican Consulates around the world and throughout the USA. https://www.gob.mx/.