Papirex
Dec 3, 2006, 4:41 PM
Post #5 of 21
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Re: [pamelawy] Anyone gotten FM3 from NYC Mexican Consulate????
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Anonimo has given good advice about simply getting a copy of any police record. The State of Alaska doesn’t deal with Mexican immigration rules often, and has no special form to use when a citizen is applying for an FM3.
I applied for my first FM3 several years ago in Seattle. It was a nightmare. There is a Mexican Consul in Anchorage where we lived, but the usual Mexican politics discouraged me from applying there, someone wanted her job. We were friends with the consul there, and she told us of her many troubles with people stealing diplomatic mail intended for her, pretending to work for her and giving people incorrect information, etc.
We called the consul in Seattle and we thought we were speaking to a lawyer there every time we called. She told us to just show up, and I would have my FM3 in two days. When we arrived in Seattle, the lawyer denied ever having spoken to either of us. That was when I realized that we had probably been speaking to a clerk that was pretending to be the lawyer.
I was told that I had to have a “letter of good conduct” from The Washington State Police. Since I had never been a Washington State resident, I called the Alaska State troopers in Anchorage. They told me I would need to send them a letter requesting my records, and a copy of FBI approved fingerprints.
I found a private security firm in Seattle that was authorized to take FBI approved fingerprints and had a set of my prints taken. I sent them and the letter requesting any police records via Fed-Ex to Anchorage. Of course, the troopers sent the records back to me via snail mail.
Altogether, it took about 12 days to get a copy of my police records from the Troopers in Anchorage. I was particularly upset, because had I known that I would need to do that, we had lived in Anchorage, and it would have been very simple to go to the trooper’s office before we left the state to get a copy. The letter simply said that there were no wants or warrants for me.
That letter from the police was the last thing we needed to provide The Consulate in Seattle. The last straw was when the lawyer there told me it would take another month for me to receive my FM3. I’m sure she was fishing for a bribe. I don’t pay bribes. I told her to hell with it, I will enter Mexico on a tourist visa again, and get my FM3 within six months after our arrival there.
We had planned to spend a week in Seattle visiting my wife’s brother there. We had already been there for three weeks. Another month was out of the question. We stopped in Phoenix to visit one of my wife’s uncles on our drive to Mexico. I went to the Mexican Consulate there. I didn’t expect to be able to get an FM3 there, but I tried anyway.
The only man in the Phoenix consulate that handled visas at that time was an elderly gentleman, very experienced, and a real pro. When I told him of my difficulties at the Seattle consulate, and that I was not an Arizona resident, but could we use my wife’s uncle’s address in Phoenix to get my FM3? He just waved his hand, and said, “That’s not important.” I had my FM3 the next day.
This happened several years ago, there have been two new presidents since then. Whenever a new president takes office here; almost all federal employees are replaced, not just department heads, all employees must be either re-appointed to their jobs, or replaced. There is no civil service system, as we know it here. It’s impossible to know how a situation like mine would be handled today.
I gave the police report along with all the other required documentation to the man in The Phoenix consulate. He glanced at it, and put it in the center of a stack of papers. I don’t think it was required at that consulate.
If you are traveling very far to go to a Mexican Consulate, I would recommend that you get a police report on yourself before you go. The Mexican Government no longer requires them, but every Mexican government entity is free to make their own rules, you may be asked for it.
You never know what will be required at any Mexican government office until you get there. Try to be prepared for anything.
Rex
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo
(This post was edited by RexC on Dec 3, 2006, 4:44 PM)
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