Mexico Residency - Temporary vs. Permanent Residency

I began my immigration process in January 2019, applying via family unity(marriage) with a pension to support myself at the Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino, California.

On the Mexico side ( I live in Baja California full time), we went to the INM office and completed the residency application process. They put me on a pathway thru temporary residency first, renewing to Permanent after 2 years, now in process for citizenship.

I wouldn’t worry about temporary or permanent so much as just being on a legal pathway. At the border INM offices, it seems like the Officers are extremely well versed in every avenue possible for immigration, residency, work and citizenship. I was in line with Haitian, Chinese, Filipino, Honduran, US, Ukrainian and Venezuelan citizens seeking work and residency permits in the same office as me, all with extremely different backgrounds, qualifications, language skills and circumstances. What impressed me was the professionalism the INM officers aided and processed all of our applications, regardless of the factors involved with specific persons and cases. My experience is trust in the process, be patient and make sure your paperwork is exactly correct.

On the US side it may be helpful to seek out and maintain state residency in a state that best suits your specific needs and interests. We chose Texas ( one of the 3ish RVer friendly states (Texas, South Dakota, Florida) and maintain a mailing address there for banking, driving and insurance purposes in the US ecosystem.

We have used a few different methods to move capital for our expenses here (Wise, Remitly , Bank wire, DolarApp) You are probably extremely well versed in all that. We found US credit unions (Altura and State Department Federal) be iron clad faithful and personally loyal to their customers, us. Some US brokerages seemed to look at us differently when we moved out of the country. Tastytrade has been excellent for us.

I have heard of some INM offices offering expedited permanent residency . My guess it’s in Mexican States/regions with less immigrants. At the Northern border, it’s pretty by the book, dealing with everything.

Hope this is helpful.

Robert Hill

I cant speak to temporary or permanent experience myself. However, our family just spent a few months living in Mexico working with a ministry that has several expat and US based families serving. We were exploring this exact thing with them for our future and were given this advice from several people that had worked through the process. There is a FMM (Forma Migratoria Multiple) which is basically there version of a tourist visit that you can instantly get when you cross the border and go in to the immigration office at your point of entry. It's generally good for up to 180 days. We were instructed multiple times to use this vehicle 3-4 times (as that gets you 1- 2 years), before we ever started applying for residency because it shows we have already spent significant time in country multiple times, went back and forth, and abided my the immigration laws. They have 30 years experience with expats and residency and would not even lets us start the process without using the FMM a few times first.

Not sure if that helps or not, but it is what we learned over the last few months and were instructed to follow as far as making the process smoother.

I got my temporary then hired an attorney to jump quickly to permanente. Hiring someone helps a lot. I brought 6 months of every investment and bank statement i had and she didn’t take a look! Very much depends on your agent that day. And it is becoming more difficult. But two of my friends we’re given permanente immediately.

I’m about to start the process for my father so he can stay in his Assisted Living situation without doing visa runs. fingers crossed as he has very little.

We are likely in a similar situation. We are 51/52 and have no pensions. In fact we don't even necessarily draw money each month (ie we have no statement from Feburary because we didn't sell anything) we have our appointment tomorrow in PHOENIX. Asking for RP but assuming we will get RT.

I have also heard some offices in mexico let you convert this quickly. We plan to use Chapala...I'll report back.