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7 years ago

What if one has no resident card?

7 years ago
When someone from the US plans to stay in Mexico for somewhere between 6 months and 4 years, one is advised to obtain a Temporary Resident Visa. To do this, one visits a Mexican embassy in the US to get a Temporary Residence Visa taped into their passport. Then, upon arriving in Mexico, the person has 30 days to visit an immigration office to get a Temporary Residence Permit plastic card. The required documents for this procedure are: one's passport, the FMM card (which one gets upon passing through customs), and a payment form that one first takes to a bank to pay a fee of $3,596 pesos and get the form stamped. The process is notoriously bureaucratic (at least in Mexico City).

Hypothetically, let's say someone gets the Temporary Residence Visa in their passport, gets the FMM form at customs, enters Mexico, but then does not visit immigration within 30 days to complete the migration process. What happens?

Would this person be considered to be illegally staying in Mexico after the 30 days? If so, what would the consequences for that be?

Or does the FMM form entitle the person to stay in Mexico for up to 180 days, as though they had only sought in the first place to be a visiter? In this case, does passing the 30 day mark entail forgoing the opportunity of having a Temporary Residence Permit?

Can someone stay in Mexico as a visiter as long as they want, as long as they return to the US at least once every 180 days?

When a person's permission to stay in Mexico does in fact expire, what happens? How seriously does the government take it? How seriously do the police take it? (I think I've seen 3 cops since I came here a month ago.) Would they come looking for you to put you in prison? Or is it like in the US where people routinely work off the books for years without getting caught? What is the impetus for complying with the bureaucratic procedure that everyone complains about?

FYI: I did comply with the procedure, this question truly is hypothetical. I'm very curious about it and cannot find anything addressing it online.

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