I'm going by there today, this time to press for results, as it's now been just over four weeks since I completed everything that can be done on the applicant's end, including the fingerprinting. At the time they said it would be "two to three weeks". What I'll be looking for from them, today, is confirmation of two things: that the paperwork was sent to Mexico City and, that they have not gotten the card back (trying to rule out that it's gotten misplaced, within the office). They are receiving scores of cards from Mexico City (you should see the lists outside the office), and mine should have been among them, as I see it. With so many to deal with, I wouldn't rule out that mine is lying on the floor, somewhere, under a piece of furniture, perhaps! It will take patience for me to get the answers I'll be looking for today, but I've got a good two hours today that I can devote to this, if necessary. Not having this completed puts some things in my life on hold and could become a even greater inconvenience if, for example, I suddenly needed to travel out of the country. ToriB, if you still want me to look to see if they have received yours I'll need your NUT, since it's by this number that they announce which ones are ready to be picked up!
Well, now the opportunity to check the lists has passed, as they are no longer using that system. Instead, you must get in line outside, and they check then and there to see if your card has arrived from Mexico City. I was told Tuesday that mine had: I picked it up today. Now, many cards have arrived from Mexico City and the waits to actually be handed the cards very long. It takes the clerk ten minutes, on average, to go through the process, so they can only do six per hour. On Tuesday there were almost forty people ahead of me to receive their cards: you can do the math and understand why I decided to come back, today. I arrived at 8:05. I was made to get in the line, and received number 19. It still took about 2.5 hours of waiting before I had the result I went for, even though four of those numbered 4-18 had given up, and left the line, somewhat shortening my wait. I think that now that cards are flowing freely from Mexico City this backlog, and crush of business, will subside.
Again another positive for a lawyer. Seems my card had arrived in Cancun on Feb 13th, but the moron lawyer didn't pick it up until the 28th of Feb. BUT, in the end, I have it in hand 2 months and 1 week from submitting things the the HR at the Hotel. Next renewal... Permanent Resident : )
Something to think about, all right, Mat. I expect things to smooth out by the end of this month, but it´s been slow going for those of us waiting to get our cards. Congrats, Tori, on getting yours! Good luck with the P.R. status, next year.
My daughter is now in the country- though it was anything but smooth. An ""essential" form she needed to proceed with her visa in UK was NEVER sent from immigration here- she waited and waited and then got totally pissed off and went to the embassy in UK who issued it without the ESSENTIAL form/letter....................so in truth she probably have entered Mexico up to a month earlier. When she arrived at the airport the INM officer had no clue what to do with her and just kept saying she didnt need a visa as she was British - she stood her ground told him what she had been thru and he got a supervisor .Eventually someone told her the next step and signed her forms in airport .(even though we later relalised he had entered her visa number off her passport incorrectly onto her card she needed to take to immigration.) serioulsy no one knew what the new system was , its only because she wouldnt take "just go thru "as an answer , if she had done as officer told her she would be in a complete pickle now.! Anyway she is here and I am happy- we have visited immigration twice and will be back as the whole process takes time. 4 hours in immigration without being allowed to take water in , is in my opinion a bad way to treat people . ! Its never a plesant experience and she came out convinced that her next documentary should be about following an expat thru the whole frustrating experience.
So glad it ended well, finally. This is a good example of misinformation all around. It´s true she didn´t need a visa to enter, she needed one to enter and then accept employment. But, she already had one, and didn't need another. If she had known this it could have saved her the scene. What she needed to be given her at the airport was her first migratory document, the completed FMM. Proper procedure would have been to note on the back of it that she was entering on a work visa, and to give her 30 days in which to apply for her next migratory document, the residente temporal with permission to work. I feel reasonably confident that after clearing away the demand for a "visa" that this is what they did for her. This isn't an issue arising under the new system (laws): if someone enters on a visa, as your daughter did, the FMM is completed to reflect that fact. The change in the law in November, last year, did not change this procedure. We should try to avoid misuse of the word "visa" because of the confusion that results from this misuse: visas are not issued in country, they are issued at Embassies and Consulates abroad. Migratory documents, including the FMM, are issued in country. As for finally getting the visa issued in the UK, the scenario I could picture is that, after she made her complaint to the Embassy they telexed INM Cancun, who replied with their notice that the visa had been approved, clearing the way for the issuance of the visa by the Embassy. _____________
I've said it before, I believe a good many of the screw ups and delays that plague people who are trying to get permission to work, or renew permission to work, are the fault of the lawyers involved, especially if it's a company lawyer. They may themselves have little experience dealing with INM and may be handling the matter as a courtesy to the corporate client- and something they feel obliged to treat as included in their retainer fee- which means they are getting nothing extra for going to the trouble of enduring the lines, and discovering the other pitfalls that may await them when they enter the halls of INM....
No V ................The INM officer at the airport really really wanted to give her a tourist card! It was on her insistance that eventually she recvd the correct FMM card. She repeated over and over- yes I need this to enter as I am going to work , I am not a tourist.My daughter speak excellent spanish so there was no misunderstanding just a serious lack of knowledge. She did not complain to embassy in London just presented herself and asked for help as she had been waiting so long for the äuthorisation letter from Cancun. They just issued her visa without it .
There is so much room for misunderstanding in these types of encounters: whether she entered as a tourist, or entered to work, she was going to get an FMM upon entry in any case. Believing, as she did, that the visa had been issued in the UK without full documentation of her right to it would have sensitized her to the possibility of trouble, at the airport. I suspect she showed the INM agent her visa, issued abroad, so there could be no confusion about her entering to work. I also expect that, in the midst of the conversation, the agent threw out that she didn´t actually need a visa to enter Mexico- true, but irrelevant, except that it would play to her fear that there might have been some irregurity in the issuance of the visa. I've seen how conversations like this go, and been part of a few myself when dealing with government agents, in which people think they are responding to each other's comments, but not knowing exactly why they aren't getting what they think they should be getting from the other in response. I suspect if I talked with your daughter it would become clear just where this went wrong: I would start with whether the first agent gave her an FMM, as as did the second agent. If the first did not, owing to some objection your daughter was making at the time, it would indicate a breakdown in the communications from the outset. I don't know if what you wrote earlier accurately reflects how this went down, but to me it says it all if the events occurred as represented. When I read this I notice the agent repeating to her that she doesn't need a visa- true enough, as she already has one, and raising the possibility that she was asking that one be given her by the agent; that she became obdurate ("stood her ground"); that she started telling the agent all she'd been through in the UK (irrelevant, at the point of encounter in the airport); that the agent decided to get a supervisor because he was having a hard time obtaining her cooperation; that the second agent explained the procedure she would need to follow after being admitted to the country, and obtained her cooperation in accepting an FMM, at this point. I caught your comment about the visa number being entered incorrectly on the FMM prepared by the supervisor- an error caught by your daughter who by that time, it appears, again had her wits about her, understood what was being said to her, and could check things like that, as she should. I'm sorry this went as it did for your daughter. Her being primed for trouble, and perhaps not too well informed what to expect upon entry, added to the probability of a misencounter. Staying cool, asking questions rather than making demands, and listening patiently when someone is trying to explain things to you goes a long way to dealing successfully with government agents of all types who are, for the most part, well intentioned, even if undertrained, underpaid, and overworked. ___________________
