One of our goals in moving to Mexico was saving money. It's true that food is less and rent is less, but we have learned that there are as many ways to lose money here as there are in Las Vegas -- just different ones! There are also as many bureaucratic rabbit holes to go down here as in the U.S. It is remarkable how similar bureaucracies are, no matter the country. That brings me to tonight's lesson: the visa, with a secondary ongoing theme of insurance headaches.
Let's review, class. On December 2, we had two cellphones, one tablet, one Nikon DSLR camera, one Dell laptop computer, and 1900 pesos stolen from our home while we slept. We filed a claim with the Mexican insurance company. We went to the state police in Tijuana and filed a formal report. A copy of that was given to our agent when she came out to look at the situation and listen to our account of what happened. An adjuster came out and went through the whole thing all over again, even though he had a copy of the police report. He also took photos and grilled me extensively about how the thief got in, etc. Eventually, we got an e-mail from the company, with a list of things still needed. Even though we'd provided several of the items, we repeated our list of what was taken, what each item cost (receipts if possible), what exactly happened, etc. They wanted a utility bill to prove we live here and a letter from someone not living with us, saying that s/he had seen the items in our possession. Our realtor provided the letter. The sticky wicket, however, was proof of our immigration status. We have to show them our temporary or permanent resident visa. There is some hope that we will get some reimbursement -- but certainly not replacement cost.
This brings me to our primary subject -- the visas. Again, I will review. I do this partly for anyone who is thinking about moving to Mexico. I read that 92% of American ex-pats in Mexico do not have the proper visas and are therefore here illegally. Hahahahahahahaha!
I won't bore you with a rehash of all of the mistakes we've made, just the steps. We started by getting U.S. passport books (cards won't work for the visa), which we would need to take to the Mexican consulate, along with photos of the first and last pages of said passports, a letter to the Consulate General, six months of bank statements (proof of income), formal application forms, passport-sized photos, and $36 each. The consulates don't take walk-ins and don't have any way to expedite the process. Therefore, our appointment in San Diego was on December 20th, even though we were ready to go through the process in early October. We left the appointment with a visa stamp on our passports, and we were instructed to take the next step: getting a visitor visa at the border. It took a little while, but we completed Step 2.
After getting our visitor visa, we did as we were instructed and went to the immigration office in Rosarito. We were given more forms to fill out and more instructions, such as for filling out more forms online. We had to bring two kinds of completed forms, our visitor visas, and a receipt from the bank for about $225 each (a transfer payment to the Mexican government) back to the Rosarito office. We didn't do everything right; some had to be done over. We were told that because we live in Baja Malibu, we're really not supposed to go to the Rosarito office, which isn't really busy at all, but to the Tijuana office, where there is a three-hour wait! The lady in Rosarito was nice and let us go through the whole thing at her office, except for fingerprints, which we'll do in Tijuana when we pick up our temporary visas. We'll then be legal residents of Mexico for a year; after a year, if we want to continue to live here, we will need to renew the visas. After four years, we will be eligible to apply for permanent resident (green card) status. There is almost no chance of that happening. It is the temporary visa that we need in order to prove our immigration status to our insurance company.
Any questions?
P.S. Our washer is now dead.
We're going back to California for the weekend. See you next week!
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