A gringo working in Mexico
Gwynnie writes at
Maggie's Farm and
has this story about someone from the USA moving to Mexico to work:
Working in Mexico
The following from a director with Southwest Bell in Mexico City:
I spent five years working in Mexico. I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.
During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara's was the same except hers did not permit her to work.
To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals (not copies) of my:- Birth certificates for Barbara and me.
- Marriage certificate.
- High school transcripts and proof of graduation.
- College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation.
- Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year.
- A letter from The St. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was "a citizen in good standing."
- Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our "I am the greatest person on earth" letter. It was fun to write. All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right.
And this is just the beginning...
There was a wonderful letter to the editor about the subject of immigration in our local newspaper today but on their website, they had the other letters but not this one. I will be sending them an email asking if this was an oversight on their part and see what they say.
Posted by DaveH at May 1, 2006 10:14 PM