# My journey to Permanent Residency



## UKMX (Jul 28, 2016)

This should be interesting. As I write, my wife and I are in the process of applying for my Residente Permanente here in Mexico. I want to share my journey (and my pain) so you can see what I've gone through, either just for fun or because perhaps you're looking at this for yourself or a family member.

First of all, my credentials and eligibility. My wife is a Mexican citizen and we obtained the necessary visa and residence permit to be married and then to reside in the UK. Unfortunately, my wife had some health complications and during her pregnancy she decided she would be better off in Mexico. She went ahead of me while I wrapped things up back home.

I contacted the Mexican consulate in London, and they told me that I could get a Residente Temporal on the basis of our marriage and combined income by both of us coming to the consulate. My wife couldn't travel, so I asked about coming alone, and was advised that she would need to begin the process at the INM. She went to the INM and was told she would have to prove that she could financially support me. Now, I'm the breadwinner, she's unemployed, and that was never going to happen.

So here I am in Mexico on a 180 day visitor's permit under the "other" category. We waited patiently for our daughter to be born, which she was a few days ago. I knew I could apply for RP on the basis of family ties as the father of a Mexican citizen, but we had first for her to be born and then to obtain her birth certificate before I could apply.

That leads me to where we are now. The INM published a list of required documents for changing the conditions of stay to RP for family union, dated November 2012. We knew I'd need the following documents and copies:

Passport
FMM
My daughter's Mexican birth certificate
Proof of payment of fees

We had called the INM and were advised we'd also need to fill out a form online, formato para solicitar trámite migratorio de estancia, which asks for a bit of basic information and generates a unique identifier. You have to print this and take it with you to the INM. Nobody mentioned the Formato Básico, but Rollybrook's website does, and I figured since it's the only place that mentions photos and fingerprints, they're probably going to have me fill it in anyway.

We know that the cost in 2012 was $4,289 and I had missed the additional application fee of $1,124, but these figures have gone up to $4,383 and $1,149. You can generate the paperwork and reference numbers online, print the document and then go to the bank and make the payment. The cashier stamps this and gives you a printed receipt, and these form your proof of payment.

Just to be sure, I had my wife call the INM again with the list of documents. This time they said we'd also need my daughter's passport as proof of ID in addition to her birth certificate. Okay, well, we need one to travel in December, so we were going to get one anyway. And I can't do anything tomorrow, because it's a public holiday.

Okay, so, before we can get the RP application going, we need her passport. So I checked what we would need for that. Make an appointment over the phone, have your CURP to hand. For those who don't know, that's the Clave Unica de Registro de Poblacion, or unique population registration code. Great, how do we get that? I found a website where we could look up a CURP given the basic personal data, but hers wasn't found, so presumably we had to do some kind of further registration. I was offered a "certificate of nonexistence", so I printed that just in case.

Next, we figured out that the delegación (local government office) where we registered her birth is the same place we have to register for her CURP. And to do that we need... her birth certificate. So why don't they just do it at the same time? Bureaucracy. As we're discovering, there's mountains of it. We need the original and copy of the birth certificate, and the certificate of nonexistence (good job I printed it!). It's also a good job I paid for 3 certified copies when we registered the birth. These copies are available now (6 days later), while the one you get as standard with the registration isn't available for collection until 15 days later. There doesn't seem to be any logic to that, but that's the way it is.

So we need her CURP, okay. We'll get the CURP then we'll make a passport appointment and then we can get the passport pretty quickly and with that I can go to the INM. But what documents do we need for her passport? Ah well, you need her birth certificate (again, good job I ordered several) and you also need photographic proof of ID. Like a school registration, voter's card (IFE/INE), driving licence, etc. Sure, because a newborn baby has one of those, right? No, we have to have a medical card issued by her doctor, with her photo on it, along with a photocopy of the doctor's professional licence! Luckily the hospital where she was born gave us some infantil (25x30mm) size photos of her, and national health booklet (cartilla nacional de salud) which has space for her infantil photo and personal details... and her CURP, of course. We also have an appointment with her paediatrician next week, so I figured we could get him to fill it out and give us a copy of his licence. But this is beyond the consultation, so I asked my wife to call and ask if there's a fee. Of course, this costs $200, and what's more, they will have to make a new credential (not sure in what form) for which we need a passport size photo of our daughter. Passport size. Not infantil. 

So all I have to do is have my baby's photo taken so I can get a new medical credential as proof of ID, along with a copy of the doctor's licence; at the same time I'll try and get her CURP as soon as I can, and once I have that I can make an appointment with the SRE to get her a passport. With that I can _then_ go to the INM and find out whether I've got everything in order, but by others' accounts, I will have to make an appointment to come back later anyway.

I now have a desk full of papers, a head full of derechos and trámites and a browser full of gob.mx pages. Luckily, I have an amazingly cute baby daughter that sort of makes it all worth it


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## Howler (Apr 22, 2013)

*You got that RIGHT!!*

:grouphug: Hang in there, you are in good company! You've come to the right place for plenty of people who have had to do the same thing in various iterations of the selfsame process. You'll also find a lot of good & recent information in previous threads (by search function), and then there are plenty of willing & available folks to lend an ear & a hand to you in your questions as you proceed (both online or in private communication). I will be starting the same "relajo" within the next year or so... and I'm already shaking in my boots!

But you ARE correct - the new child, the wonderful spouse and the exotic culture of Mexico make it all worthwhile!! :rockon:


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## UKMX (Jul 28, 2016)

Well, feliz día de las madres to all the mothers on Expat Forum; my daughter recently turned a whole six months and I thought I'd update anyone watching this thread, on how things went in the lead up to getting my Mexican green card (which is actually a card and is indeed green).

I mentioned needing to jump through a ton of hoops to get my daughter's birth registered, and then to get her passport. Well, it was relatively straightforward and certainly faster than the British system, but it was still hoop-jumping. This was the sequence:


Register the birth
Wait for and collect the certified copies of the birth certificate
Print the certificate of nonexistence from the CURP website
Take the CURP certificate and birth certificate to the offices of the delegación and request the CURP
Take+print some photos of my daughter lying on white bedding, from above, with her eyes open (obviously there are places you can get this done)
Prearrange and pay for her paediatrician to issue a credential showing my daughter's picture, signed by him, along with a copy of his cédula profesional
Make the passport appointment
Fill in a practice form I downloaded from the SRE website (forms OP-7 and OP-5)
Call and make an appointment with the nearest passport office, with CURP to hand
Attend the appointment with extra copies of everything. I brought extra passport photos but they told me that's just for the application, and they wanted to take the passport photo (of a 1 month old baby) in the office, using rather unsophisticated equipment, in a tight space. She was so sleepy, it just didn't happen, and they ended up taking a picture of the printed picture I provided  We had to wait for the next stage of the interview, pure bureaucracy, but it wasn't too painful.
We chose to go to the passport office that's in a mall, so we just went for something to eat while we waited for them to make the passport, and returned after an hour or whatever it was they told us. I had the passport in my hand the same day.

With the passport of course, I could continue with my application for permanent residency. I did loads of research, downloaded copies of forms wherever I could, making use of the Rolly Brook website where possible. I had to start my application on the INM website, which generates a summary form with a barcode that references the data submitted. When you go to the INM, they can look up what you entered online without you having to print and bring with you a long application form. I did the Formato Basico at this time, which meant I didn't have to wait for them to give it to me on a later visit or sit figuring out how to fill it in at the INM.

Once I had all my documents, it was time to take a trip to the INM in Mexico City. I took a photocopy of my passport as ID, since I needed my actual passport for the procedure. You have to surrender a form of ID or photocopy thereof, at the ground floor reception. There your name is taken and they have a little webcam to take another photo, after which they print out a sticky label with the floor number you're authorized to go to, and a squashed, low-res monochrome version of the webcam photo. You wear it proudly on your chest, and a police officer lets you into the elevator lobby, where another official keys in the floor you're authorized for. Upstairs, you first queue at a small desk (once you've figured that out) where your paperwork is checked and your application reference looked up, and if all is in order, you'll be given a number.

Now here's where I learned something new. They insist that you handwrite a list of the documents you're submitting with your application, in a space at the bottom of one of the pages of the form printed from the INM website. Remember they usually want two copies of everything, especially proof of payment. What they actually do is take the original and a copy, and then give you one copy back, so you can't argue it's not valid because you made the copy yourself. The official will stamp anything that's a copy, and give you back originals of things like passports or birth certificates. In my case they wanted me to redo a photocopy of my daughter's birth certificate because it was legal size and I'd made the copy at home where the scanner isn't long enough for that. There's a copy shop in the mall just down the street, so that was quick to address.

I told them I hadn't paid anything, but that I had printed a form for payment. They told me not to worry and wait until I received the instruction to pay, which would come via email. What actually happens is you get an email with a password to access data about your application on the INM website, and when they want to communicate something to you, they upload a scan of their letter to this 'account' on the website, and send you an email notifying you, essentially, "You've got mail!" So you log in and there you can download a PDF of the letter. In my case, a letter arrived in this way just over a week after my first visit, instructing me to pay the initial fee of MX$1,149 and bring proof of payment (plus two copies) to the INM. The fee payment form was attached so that would be easy enough. I printed the letter so I could show the lady at that first desk upstairs when I, so she would know exactly why I was there without too much conversation. It's worth noting up to this point everything was done in Spanish, and for permanent residence, I'm sure that helps.

On my next visit, things were a little more complicated. On my first visit I'd informed the official that I had to leave the country on 1st December for two weeks. He told me the permiso de salir y regresar al país (permission to leave and return to the country) could be applied for within two weeks of departure. When I went back with my proof of payment for the first stage of the RP, I also filled in and paid for the online application for the permiso, and brought it with me at the same time. I was lucky because I came in on a Tuesday. 'Audencias' (hearings - which apparently I needed) are held on Tues and Thurs only. I was told to see a named person, who later called me through to another room to discuss the RP and permiso situation.

A side note: when you have an FMM for visiting < 6 months, you keep it with your passport and hand it back when you leave. That way (1) they know you haven't overstayed; (2) they have a record of when you left; and (3) if you do overstay, they'll know because they have your landing card but no FMM six months later. But when you apply to change status in-country, you surrender the FMM. At this point you're in limbo, and you can't leave the country because you have no FMM to present at the port of departure. If you claim you lost it, you'll pay a fine, but that will also invalidate your in-progress application with the INM. So to leave while an application is in progress, you need the permiso. I actually had to attend court as a witness, so I got a letter confirming this from someone in a position of authority, and translated it into Spanish with help from my wife. Didn't need to be a certified translation, so I just printed everything at home. I wrote my own covering letter, in Spanish, to explain why I needed to leave, enclosing the original letter from the UK and its translation as attachments to my letter.

So I saw my immigration official in a side room, and he checked over my RP application and assured me that everything was in order. I told him I still had to hand over my photos, which I didn't have with me last time. They want 'infantil' size colour photos of your face from the front and the right side, and with what happened on the passport, I wanted to make sure they weren't going to be taking them there. They told me to bring them when I came next time, so of course I had them in my wallet. I pulled my wallet out and the official quietly freaked out, asking me to put it away, and pointing out that we were on CCTV, and it could look like I'm giving him a bribe. I had to give the photos to an official at one of the windows in the main room, who would log it in as a document against my application number, after we'd finished in there. The guy assured me there was no reason my application wouldn't be approved, but he did leave to double-check that it would be ready before I had to leave. He reassured me it would be. I asked about getting a refund on the fee for the permiso since I wouldn't need it, and he said it was possible but likely not worth the hassle considering the amount. I agreed, and went out to wait my turn to hand over the photos. I had to go away and wait for another email.

I waited but got impatient due to the proximity to my date of departure. I went back in on the Monday of the week I was leaving to see the same guy, but was told that audencias are only on Tues/Thurs. I came back Tues and they said it would be ready in time. Thurs afternoon I was leaving, so when I didn't have another email, I came back first thing and waited until my guy arrived for work, at which point I was already on his list. He apologised and said that actually everything was approved, but it needed a final signature from a senior official, and none were in that day (presumably unexpectedly). The only option was to press ahead with the permiso application, so he made sure it was fast tracked, and I got the permiso issued the same day. I had to get it stamped by INM at the airport just past security, present it at the gate, keep it safe, and get it stamped at immigration when I returned. I then had to present it personally at the INM office within 10 days of re-entry, after which I could continue my RP application....


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## UKMX (Jul 28, 2016)

It was basically Christmas when I got back, so as soon as I could afterwards, within the 10 days, I went back to the INM with my stamped permiso, only to be told they were closed until the 20-something of January! I'd actually received another letter in the meantime, confirming that my application for RP was approved, and I had to pay another MX$4,383 and give my fingerprints. I came back as early as possible to hand over the permiso, and then came back a few days later with proof of payment for the RP. It was busier and I had to wait in line twice, first to hand over proof of payment and second to get fingerprinted. It's a wet, ten-print process and very messy. No special wipes, just a bit of tissue, and you're lucky if you can get it all off in the public bathrooms. They asked me to wait an hour and come back, so I set an alarm for 50mins and headed to Starbucks.

I came back, waited for my number to come up, and they had the card printed and ready. I had to check the details and sign for it, after which I could take it with me and (hopefully) never return!

Although I have the right to work, pay is low so I kept my self-employed status in the UK and that's how I make my income, bringing it over to an account in my wife's name via TransferWise, or paying with our UK debit card and accepting the charges (exchange rate is a bit less favourable and usually we pay about £1 per transaction, but its convenient). I did apply for an RFC and informed the tax authorities that I have no income in Mexico, but never received any letter or email of confirmation, so who knows? Soon I may need to start invoicing in Pesos, so I'll need to revisit that, but for now I have a green card and the ability to do most things Mexicans can do here without encountering a problem, such as getting into Chapultepec castle for free on Sundays eep:

So in summary, it took 3 weeks from birth to getting a passport for my daughter, then about another 3 weeks to get the RP approved, after which we had a gap for my trip to the UK and the INM's Christmas vacations, but another 7 weeks after approval I had the card in my hand, and it would have been the same week (say 4 weeks after I first visited the INM with my application) were it not for the trip.

All in all an interesting and not altogether difficult or expensive process, but one with plenty of gotchas, and I'm fairly meticulous when it comes to planning and paperwork. Dot every i and cross every t, have a native speaker on hand to help you, project confidence when you go to the INM and keep it simple.

My next challenge was getting a British passport for my daughter from overseas, not as easy (or cheap) as it sounds.


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## UKMX (Jul 28, 2016)

Just another quick note - registering the birth was a strange and frustrating process. It's very easy in the UK, from what I understand (my mother is a Registrar), but the important thing I knew was that I would need an apostilled copy of my birth certificate and a certified translation thereof. That I did in the UK because courier fees are expensive, so I already had it. I got the certified translation done by a contact in Mexico, and made copies of everything. Whenever you use a birth certificate or certified copy of one in the UK, it is returned to you as it is a valuable document. The date of issue is irrelevant, and many people will never need a certified copy, using only the original that was issued within 6 weeks of their birth. In Mexico, however, they have a date of issue and some authorities will not accept one beyond a certain age. Getting copies is a slow, bureaucratic process, but it's cheap. It's easier if you're in the state where you were born. Nevertheless, this means that the way they treat a birth certificate is as though it's disposable. Very different to the British attitude. The civil registry actually retained my apostilled birth certificate and the original certified translation, which in total was about £100 worth of fancy paper. I wasn't expecting that, and I even tried to get them to give it back, but they wouldn't.

Anyone who has to go through any of the things I have and wants some help, just let me know and I'll advise and assist as much as I can.


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## circle110 (Jul 20, 2009)

Thank you, 
I am going to have to do all this in the very, very near future but there is almost too much information and text here to sort through in a way that will be helpful to me.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

circle110 said:


> Thank you,
> I am going to have to do all this in the very, very near future but there is almost too much information and text here to sort through in a way that will be helpful to me.


Isn't that better than not enough information?


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## circle110 (Jul 20, 2009)

Isla Verde said:


> Isn't that better than not enough information?


True.


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## PV Bob (Apr 27, 2017)

This is a great read, although I'm sure not a great experience outside of adding your daughter to the family! We will be going through this over the coming year and have been weighing temp vs permanent based on complexity etc. Will certainly refer to this note when the time comes. Mexperience has a very good guide on the subject as is yucalandia.com/answers-to-common-questions/new-rules-and-procedures-for-immigration-visiting-and-staying-in-mexico

Thanks again


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## cels (Apr 27, 2016)

UKMX said:


> Just another quick note - registering the birth was a strange and frustrating process. It's very easy in the UK, from what I understand (my mother is a Registrar), but the important thing I knew was that I would need an apostilled copy of my birth certificate and a certified translation thereof. That I did in the UK because courier fees are expensive, so I already had it. I got the certified translation done by a contact in Mexico, and made copies of everything. Whenever you use a birth certificate or certified copy of one in the UK, it is returned to you as it is a valuable document. The date of issue is irrelevant, and many people will never need a certified copy, using only the original that was issued within 6 weeks of their birth. In Mexico, however, they have a date of issue and some authorities will not accept one beyond a certain age. Getting copies is a slow, bureaucratic process, but it's cheap. It's easier if you're in the state where you were born. Nevertheless, this means that the way they treat a birth certificate is as though it's disposable. Very different to the British attitude. The civil registry actually retained my apostilled birth certificate and the original certified translation, which in total was about £100 worth of fancy paper. I wasn't expecting that, and I even tried to get them to give it back, but they wouldn't.
> 
> Anyone who has to go through any of the things I have and wants some help, just let me know and I'll advise and assist as much as I can.


My civil registry wanted my citizenship certificate with an Apostille, but they suggested that I get a notarised copy because, they said, it was expensive documentation for me to give up (it certainly is). That was considerate of them. Perhaps it's different with birth certificates, or it just depends on the office. They all seem to have different rules, even if they're in the same city.


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