Mexican immigration law: New regulations published!

[DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer. The following is my take on the new Mexican immigration law.]

Ever since we decided to move back to Mexico, one of the things that I dreaded was the mountain of paperwork that is required to go through the Mexican immigration process.

How it worked in the past.  Meme by moi.

A major requirement that I've been concerned about over the last 3 years is the requirement that the family applying for the visa must prove a minimum income or show bank balances that meet certain requirements.  That would be fine, but the minimum requirement was pretty high, more on par with the wages a person in the U.S. would make.  This requirement is referred to as solvencia economica or financial/economic solvency.  Maybe it wouldn't be so horrendous if the rules weren't arbitrary, but they were.

Enter the NEW immigration law, that just went into effect today.  At 7 AM, I was on the Mexican immigration website and...

No more financial solvency requirement!  So, what this means is that the spouses or mothers/fathers of Mexican children (as in, you may not be married to a Mexican, but you have children with him/her) no longer have to prove a $1,200+ US income per month!  Oh Joy!

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

So how does the process work for spouses of Mexicans? [Again, this is my understanding of the new law. If I hear any different interpretations, or if you have experienced something different, please comment!]

Unlike other visa categories, such as retirees or employees of Mexican companies do not have to get a special visa prior to entering the country.  They can enter Mexico on a tourist visa (FMM), and change their status once they are there.  This is in contrast to other visa categories (except for refugees), that cannot change their status once they are in Mexico and need to obtain a special visa from a Mexican consulate in their home country).

Once in Mexico, you can go onto the Mexican immigration website and start the change of status process. The new visa category is referred to as vinculo familiar, which literally means "family tie".

The description of this category on the INM website is translated as:

Applicable to the visitor or temporary resident, who wants to permanently [or temporarily] reside and has ties with Mexican or permanent resident foreign person.

Here is the link to the requirements from the INM website.

The list includes (super rough translation):

1. Passport and travel document (e.g. FMM)
2. Proof of payment of application cost (you do this at the bank, if things are the same as before as far as that goes).
3. Original and copy of Mexican citizen's ID (passport, voter card)
4. Proof of ties with a Mexican, such as:

• In the case of family tie based on Mexican children: original and copy of birth certificate of Mexican children (register your kids at the Mexican consulate near you before you leave!)
• In the case of family tie based on Mexican spouse: original and copy of marriage certificate.

None of the listed requirements say anything about having an apostille or translation.  Because the apostille process will be a whole lot more complicated (if not impossible) once you are outside of the U.S., get it done before you leave, JUST IN CASE.  In PA it took more or less 2 weeks about 5 years ago.  That might have changed, but I don't know.

I'll update this blog post if I find out anything new/different, and I recommend leaving comments with your experiences!