With INM, any official payments are made through the bank. If you're asked to pay money inside the office... mordida
Exacto. We had to walk over to the bank right behind INM and pay and bring the receipt back. My GF says it was $491 and then $2001 when completed. This was for an investor FM3. Strangely enough, despite requiring all sorts of little stuff, they never verified the big stuff, meaning the financial requirements.
There you have it. You win the prize for having dealt with a type of application none of us has done! Still, it's a little puzzling to me, unless they've instituted a new fee that none of the rest of us faced when we went through the process, some time ago. As for verifying the financial requirements, let's just say they trust us to do the right thing, as they don't usually do more than just require the submission of documents, and don't go behind the documents to verify the truth of the contents. In this they aren't much different from many other immigration offices in other countries. And, by the way, congratulations to your GF for handling the thing for you: this is close enough to a "do it yourselfer" to join the club. _________________________
Let me be clear, we met the requirement of an investment of $150,000 USD, we just never had to show any evidence of it. She rocks! Poor thing spent so many hours in those lines and at the notary while I chilled at the condo, she earned a lot of brownie points. I only made 3 visits to the INM office while she made more than a dozen.
Maybe the extra $400 was to register with the Registro Nacional de Extranjeros? I had to do that when I got married to a Mexican citizen in 2011. It was done after everything was approved, though. I paid it at the same time I paid my FM2.
My GF is Peruvian but we went through the citizenship process in the USA a few years ago. What you say about the US system, is perhaps true, but misleading. You do have to submit a fee with your application. The difference between the US and Mexico is, the application CLEARLY enumerates every single requirement and piece of documentation required in a nice checklist. If you provide all they ask, and do not lie or forge any of it, and meet the clear requirements, the citizenship is granted. It is NOT subject to the whims and interpretations of whomever happens to process your application. So in your statement about possibly being denied, this will only happen if you do not submit what they ask for or submit false documentation. Otherwise, it is a slam dunk.
Bear in mind that we're not talking about applications for citizenship on this thread, if that makes a difference in your calculations. ____________________ INM may be irksome to deal with, as most agencies dealing with residency issues are, but in my experience they don't operate much differently from most of the ones I've had contact with. (Is the U.S. Embassy any easier for a novice to deal with in getting permission to enter the U.S., with residency the object? I suspect not, for most.) Your process may have been a bit of a trial, given that your GF had to make 12 trips to the offices; but, some of these surely involved the learning curve. I'm not going to go too far in defending the local INM, given their inefficient way of dealing with things, but they have provided me lists of things I'd need to submit, in each case of applications I've been involved with (seven, so far) which were clear enough about what would be required. ____________________
It looks like there is now some movement towards implementing the new INM laws: the regulations which will detail how these laws are to be applied are supposed to be published later this month. Staff has received training in the new rules, according to what I've been reading. Those who apply for new documents, or renewals, in March may be the first to see how these will work, in practice.
I am up for renewal of my retirementFM3 this month (8th renewal) and am wondering if anyone has heard about the implementation of the new laws. If I understand them correctly I can apply for a resident card. Is this correct?
Hi Frank, For sure you can apply for an FM2, Inmigrante, which, in the Regs, says "Permanent Resident" (in Esp of course). But Permanant does not really mean permanent as it needs to be renewed each year. This may or may not answer your question.
