Well, I have to admit I was impressed. This week the INM staff gave up half the working space allocated to them in the main hall, to provide more seating room for the clients. There are now 77 places to sit in air conditioned comfort; but, the procedural changes to improve the flow of work through the office was even more impressive. I'll tell you about it. There is now an information desk outside, under the awning. It is manned by a fully bilingual staff person (Spanish/English). She controls who may enter the main hall, and issues numbered "turns". Unlike before, everything is now done on the basis of turns, with three different colored plastic cards representing the lines for three different phases of the progress of a tramite (application). Even better, the staff have now been cross trained, and across the "front desk" all are dealing with the clients as their numbers are called (the old procedure which involved far more specialization of staff, and a number of different lines to choose from, with people informally lining up where ever they thought they should, and causing confusion and waste of time in wrong lines, has been eliminated: those waiting are merely waiting for their number to be called, and have a place to sit. There is no longer a need to guess which line you should be in). Today there was a bottle neck at the desk for fingerprinting, with just one worker assigned there, so I decided to come back Friday: I'm sure they'll iron that one out, soon. The office was very busy, dealing with the backlog of cases left over from the long winter holiday, but all signs point to a new, improved INM, Cancun!! Will I miss it, now that my trips to INM are just about over for life? Maybe, just a little.... ToriB was also there but in the process of getting stood up by her lawyer so she may not have felt much like marvelling quite as much at the improvements as I did....
The changes seem good(havent been, yet..) but that it should take soooo many years for them to implement a system that a 5 year old kid could do, is what worries me, hehe (Note: That goes for most things in Mexico, so INM is by no means exclusive to that.) Just yesterday Novedades had a report, headlined "Corrupcion INM Cancun y el trafico de Europeos". Couldnt get a copy as a taxi driver bought the last one. Maybe the surface has been nicely polished yet again, but the contents in many cases are still the same? Im hoping I only have ONE more visit, ever.
I dont give a flying......... how nice the office looks- my daughters Visa has still not been issued and I am sick to death of being a family seperated by crap INM !!!!
That's great; it was the most intimidating experience to navigate that system! That's the main reason I hired Mauricio every year!
TraceyUk: A polished turd is still a turd, right? Im really curious about the corruption this time in Novedades. The "Trafficking of Europeans" made me curious.
Tracey, you speak of a visa, but visas are issued only by embassies and consulates outside of the country. Is she outside the country, waiting to get a visa to enter; or, do you have a process going on at INM to get permission for your daughter to reside here in Mexico, with you, because your daughter is here now, having entered on an FMM, on a visa free basis? If so, when was the tramite filed? Was it filed on or before 8 Nov? If you've got a case pending with INM Cancun, and you have the document issued by INM when a case is filed, you can check online to see for yourself what stage the case is at: if you don't have a copy of that document, you can't know for sure if it's even been filed.
Important Update I've got an important update for any who will be visiting the INM offices in the near future: they now open at 8 AM! (The sign outside still reads 9 AM, so don't be deceived.) I got there at 8:20 this morning, hoping to be among the first to go through fingerprinting. The line outside was already operating with the bilingual staff I mentioned earlier, present. I was given a turn for the line for fingerprinting, and was number 2! As soon as the staff was ready to start the fingerprinting operation I was seen immediately, there being two people at that desk instead of the one poor soul there on Wednesday, when I decided to leave rather than wait longer. When I arrived, the front desk, for the receipt of applications and other operations, was already operating and they had reached number 6, or so. Staff was still arriving, so the front desk was not yet at full strength. One of the very impressive things about the changes is the transparency and equality of treatment that has been put in place: everyone is required to take a turn, even agents and lawyers. I spoke with one lawyer, who of course lamented the changes because she must now appear early in the morning if she hopes to get in and out quickly. Her client was a European businessman who lamented that he must now wait in line, and go through the processes step by step in person, rather than "getting an FM3 in just one day," as he'd been able to before, without having to appear at every stage. All in all, I'm very impressed with the changes as Mexico, at least at the Federal level, continues to push for greater transparency, legality, and fairness in the conduct of government business.
The only way agents and lawyers were (are) able to expidite the process was by bribing the underpaid staff.
It's certainly going to be a lot easier for the do-it-yourselfers, especially those who can speak a little Spanish. Renewals will be especially easy for those who have the non lucrativa, rentista type documents, as a letter saying nothing has changed since the last filing is about all that is required in terms of documents, it seems, under the new law: first timers, though, have got it a lot rougher, with new and stiffer financial requirements to meet.
My daughter is in Uk waiting for her work visa to be issued by immigration here in Cancun.Imn here issues it then send it to London then she waits 3 more days in UK then comes to Mexico and again presents herself to IMN in Cancun.. She has been"clasificado"since 10th December- all her correct papers were given in by company lawyer in Novemeber and she is still waiting. She checks online every hour. She has called consulate etc and of course the only ones able to get info from IMN is herself (not poss as she is in Uk) and the company lawyer who says she just has to wait. its miserable and stupid. She came for 2 weeks in December to spend xmas with us then had to rtn as she needs to be in her own country when visa is issued. Its driving me mad .................we have done everything properly. As for transparency and fairness my other daughter was pushed straight to the front on the queue this week when an agent recognised her as a friend of her daughters ! Great for her not so great for people waiting in line for an hour.
