Help registering FM3

Re: FM-3 Registration - My Experience

There's a little bit of circular reasoning here, no? The reason for using the services of an expert is precisely that you don't have to keep going back. It's up to you and your pain threshold to decide how many hours or days out of your life are worth wasting.

After a memorable 6 trip extravaganza, we decided to take the path of least resistance and based on advice from this board, selected Mauricio Mendoza. We've never looked back.

And I really doubt that the Mexican Government has any interest in our local attorneys' very existance, let alone their job security.

 

I would be a bit more blunt and say there's no way in hell that INM cares about keeping local attorneys in business. In fact having an attorney on your case with INM can HURT you in some situations because so many attorneys here do immigration work as just a part of the services they offer and so are not all that good at it.

Mauricio is great at immigration work because he worked in the Cancun INM office for 6 years as a boss (he approved my first FM3 himself), so he knows exactly how decisions get made and exactly how the office works.

 

Mexican vs US immigration

I have personal experience with both US and Mexican immigration.

The main difference between the two is that in the US it is virtually impossible to do even the most basic of applications without legal representation. I have experience with both H1B and Green Card applications. You cannot just turn up an immigration office and expect to speak to an official of any type. You can often wait months for an appointment.
I'm guessing that in the past 6 years myself and my company have paid in excess of 30,000 USD for immigration related matters. And mine is a simple case.

In Mexico you can at least go to the immigration office and do your own paperwork. I paid for a lawyer because I hate lining up and dealing with Mexican officialdom. Over 4 years I spent around 3,000 USD on various FM3 renewals and naturalization processes.

Immigration sucks wherever you do it...

 

I spoke to an attorney last night who informed me that there will be a standard minimum fee for anyone doing business as a representative of a Fm3/2 applicant. The minimum fee would be 6,000 pesos. Supposedly it is an attempt to stop those people that under cut the "regular" price

 

6,000 pesos to hire someone to register my address is a bit much for me. There was no reason I needed to go back so many times as I had all of my paperwork in order. I guess I have more time than money.

 

I've never paid more than 3000 pesos, which is about 225 USD, per person. so 6000 would buy me 2 applications, not an individual application. There are other licencios and abogados in Cancun who charge more, but the person most mentioned here, Mauricio Mendoza, does not.

And believe me, once you've stared across the counter into the blank eyes of the typical agent in the Cancun office, whose sole reason for living is to make you confused and miserable, who has just told you that you need to go away and come back in a week with another piece of unobtainable paper properly signed, attested to, apostiled and copied to a sheet of velum cut from the back of a Mongolian goat for your fifth or sixth visit to that crowded, noisy and swealtering dark hole, that 3000 peso fee will seem more than reasonable.