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Mexican Citizenship


sue

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Our nearest SRE office says bring no one and they will help you. It may be worth asking.

Merry Christmas

Sonia

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SRE is the agency that deals with citizenship and passport control while INM controls issuance of visas to foreigners.

The SRE offices are in the government building on Alcade in Guadalajara. The people working at SRE are a lot easier to deal with than INM, at least in Guadalajara.

There are several requirements for citizenship, none of which are terribly difficult but they can be time consuming. In particular the requirement for a recent, long form apostiled and translated birth certificate can be challenging especially when names don't match across that document, visa and passport.

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No, no mudgirl, there is most definetely a conversational spanish fluency test.  Same one for seniors as not seniors.  Easy to fail if you can't hold a conversation.  There is no history test for seniors (so I wove that info into the conversation).

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if you are over 60 there is no written test. They ask you simple questions in spanish like What do you like about Mexico, what do you think of the mexican people? They may play around with you asking for additional docs requiring you to make extra trips. But, all is cordial and helpful.Bring everything required by imigration, the mentioned apostilled birth certificate - translated into spanish, bank statements, deeds, marriage certificate - translated into spanish. everything that shows your connection to mexico

Stay cool and courteous and bring whatever they ask for. It is all a game. The passport process can be done at the same place (outside their small office) and there is a discount for 3rd edad applicants.

 

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13 hours ago, mudgirl said:

A friend of mine failed the citizenship test, twice, because her Spanish wasn't good enough. I know they waive the Spanish fluency test for seniors, but don't know what the age cut-off is. You might want to bone up on your Spanish- i.e. it's permanente, not perminenta.

There is no cut off age for seniors in this area where the Spanish fluency test is concerned.  My spouse and went through all the steps several years ago and then went to Guadalajara for the final step, at which point a beaurocrat with a heavy accent and (in the opinion of the facilitator who was with us)had a speech impediment proceeded to test us for Spanish fluency regardless of our ages.  We are definitely into senior territory.  We are both hearing impaired, could not understand him and we both failed.  Our lawyer told us that the test is waived in Mexico city, but at that point, we gave up on citizenship. 

Don't waste your energy or money unless you are prepared for this.

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Yes the man has a speech impediment but we passed by guessing what he asked...."where do you live?," "How old are you,":"How long have you been out of Mexico in the last TWO years?"....we were lucky as the Municipality of Joco sent a group of people....City Manager etc....to keep us company.

 

Fred Habacht

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6 hours ago, barbara habacht said:

Yes the man has a speech impediment but we passed by guessing what he asked...."where do you live?," "How old are you,":"How long have you been out of Mexico in the last TWO years?"....we were lucky as the Municipality of Joco sent a group of people....City Manager etc....to keep us company.

 

Fred Habacht

We were not lucky, and it was an expensive attempt, considering all the preliminary paperwork.

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47 minutes ago, sue said:

Thank you I will have to order my long form birth certificate but at least I have a starting point.

The web site https://www.vitalchek.com/birth-certificates can help, especially if your birth county can aposille the document at the same time. In Texas all birth certificates must be sent to Austin to be apostilled so unless you were born there it takes 2 trips. Michigan for example provides apostille services at county level.

One of the big things is that your name matches on passport and visa. Exactly. As was stated before, you can get a affidavit (in Spanish) notarized at the consulate reconciling your birth name to the other documents if the latter carry a married surname. My birth certificate carried a Jr. suffix which I never used. Another affidavit fixed that, notarized at the consulate.

The Jalisco criminal report is easy but the federal one can be costly as someone (not necessarily you) have to go to DF to get it.

It used to be you needed to have been on a FM2 for 5 years to qualify. Don't know how that changed after temporal/permanente went into effect.

There are travel restrictions too. In the last 2 years you cannot have traveled out of Mexico more than a certain amount, perhaps 3 months. Passport in and out stamps have to be matched up.

 

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Thank you John .  I am Canadian the long form Canadian birth certificate is certified not apostilled but works the same.  I did not realize that I would need 2 crime reports I am beginning to understand why people say it is a costly venture. 

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Rules change here with little or no notice The permanente is good now but what if they decide that it has a 1 3 or 5 year lifespan and there is a whole new set of rules to qualify?  I am investing a lot in my life here in Mexico and want to take all the steps I can to protect it.

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Sue, It is a benefit and you keep your other citizenship.  Also it is easy to get we went to GDL with a all of the paperwork once and it only took 3 weeks to process.  They are extremely pleasant.   Rules change so often, it is easier living here as a citizen and not a guest with a visa.  Temporal, permanente are all visas.  Different discounts will be offered and when ID is asked for you will get a different response.  It is great.  If you are living here forever, do it. Pm me for more info

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Before becoming too enthusiastic..........check out the disadantages of becoming a citizen. It's Senor Google time. Look before you leap. After some research, I decided that in spite of possible future changes in the law, I was better off living here as a U.S. citizen on a Residente Permanente basis.

 

 

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I believe gringal has a Very valid point, that even some  "facilitators" will agree with. Look before you leap. Mexico has never cancelled any "permanent" type of stay before and there is absolutely no reason to think they would in the future. That is called "scare tactics". And, the benefits, contrary to some, are not any different. Check them out, don't just accept someone's post here.

 

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