Marrying a Mexican Citizen

[maesonna]

Originally Posted by shari

marrying a mexican is not for the faint of heart!! If you do decide to marry...do it in mexico, makes it easier for later tramites

I'd be interested to know the basis for this advice, as it hasn’t been my experience that the trámites have been any more complicated with a foreign marriage. All we had to do was to get a constancia de matrimonio when moved to Mexico which basically consists of a certificate showing that your foreign marriage has been entered into the Mexican Registro Civil, and then any time you’re asked for a marriage certificate (acta de matrimonio), you produce the constancia and it counts because the marriage has been registered in Mexico.

Originally Posted by shari

go directly to the FM2 asap.

Agreed. Instead of having to renew every year forever, as in the case of an FM3, after five years of annually renewing your FM2, you are inmigrado and you no longer have to do any renewals. (That is if you don’t nationalize first. If you plan to nationalize as soon as possible, the FM2 enables you to do so after 2 years.)

[landsearchabby]

Originally Posted by sigler311

Hey, I have been dating my Mexican girlfriend for about a year(I actually met her while she was studying in the states) and thinking about getting married here, my question is....

Once we get married I will be issued an FM2 and will have to wait 2 years in order to apply for citizenship and the application may take up to another year to be approved. Am I right on this?

Another key question, during this two years that I am living here on my FM2, am I allowed to work freely in mexico like a mexican citizen or would I still have to find a company willing to sponsor me and have to go through the whole work visa route.

Thanks!

Hi there, yes you can work with your FM2 you can apply for work and they will change your status from a dependent of your wife to working, hotels timeshare or real estate are easier ways to work within this framework good luck and i hope everything works out well for you

Abby

[maesonna]

Originally Posted by landsearchabby

Hi there, yes you can work with your FM2 you can apply for work and they will change your status from a dependent of your wife to working, hotels timeshare or real estate are easier ways to work within this framework good luck and i hope everything works out well for you

Abby

What you say is true, but it might give the wrong impression following sigler311’s question. Sigler311 asked whether he could work freely or whether he still had to find a company willing to sponsor him.

As you mentioned “they will change your status from a dependent to working,” i.e. he can’t work legally until he finds an employer to sponsor him and gets his status changed, he still has to submit the same fee and basically the same documents as a person who doesn’t have a Mexican spouse.

[BajaGringo]

[quote=maesonna;158069]I'd be interested to know the basis for this advice, as it hasn’t been my experience that the trámites have been any more complicated with a foreign marriage. All we had to do was to get a constancia de matrimonio when moved to Mexico which basically consists of a certificate showing that your foreign marriage has been entered into the Mexican Registro Civil, and then any time you’re asked for a marriage certificate (acta de matrimonio), you produce the constancia and it counts because the marriage has been registered in Mexico.

I believe what Shari was referring to is that although there is a bit more paperwork and legwork involved in marrying a Mexican national in Mexico than say in the USA, it will make things easier later. I am going through the citizenship route via marriage myself right now. We were married in California and it was a bit of a pain what we had to go through to get the marriage registered in Mexico. Made me wish we had just gotten married here in the first place now...

[maesonna]

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

I believe what Shari was referring to is that although there is a bit more paperwork and legwork involved in marrying a Mexican national in Mexico than say in the USA, it will make things easier later. .

Yes, that’s what I was wondering. We (me Canadian, him Mexican) married in Canada some time before moving to Mexico, and we have never yet encountered a situation in Mexico where it would have been easier if we had gotten married here in Mexico, or to put it another way, we have never had any situation where the fact that our marriage took place outside Mexico increased the complication factor.

So I was wondering what trámites you or Shari had to do that would have been more complicated with a foreign marriage, because I haven’t run up against any (yet).

[BajaGringo]

Originally Posted by maesonna

Yes, that’s what I was wondering. We (me Canadian, him Mexican) married in Canada some time before moving to Mexico, and we have never yet encountered a situation in Mexico where it would have been easier if we had gotten married here in Mexico, or to put it another way, we have never had any situation where the fact that our marriage took place outside Mexico increased the complication factor.

So I was wondering what trámites you or Shari had to do that would have been more complicated with a foreign marriage, because I haven’t run up against any (yet).

Have you registered your marriage with immigration/minister of foreign relations yet? I can't speak for what you may have gone through but here in Baja it required several steps including having our certified marriage certificate and a certified copy of my birth certificate get an apostille stamp in San Diego, official translations of both documents along with my passport and then a trip to Mexicali for another document thta stated I had never been married before in Mexico. It would basically have been much of the same process to just get married in Mexico but then I wouldn't have lost the time accumulated as I did for the two years needed. They do give you a 6 month window but past that the clock goes back to zero. What made it really hard for me is that when we got married I had the time to do all the legwork and now I don't which is why I just hired an attorney here experienced in the process...

[maesonna]

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Have you registered your marriage with immigration/minister of foreign relations yet?

Yes, I mentioned upthread that we had done it and had gotten the constancia de matrimonio (the document that proves that the foreign marriage is registered with the Registro Civil).

Indeed, now I see your point. Ours, for some reason, seemed much less complicated. All I remember for sure is getting the certified translation. It was 12 years ago and the memory is sort of hazy in the mists of time, so maybe we did have to get the original marriage certificate authenticated, too (Canada doesn’t do apostille), but if so, it was no big deal because I was getting my degrees authenticated at the same time for my FM2, so if I got the marriage certificate done, it was just one more piece of paper processed at the same time.

[Tom O'Brien]

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Have you registered your marriage with immigration/minister of foreign relations yet? I can't speak for what you may have gone through but here in Baja it required several steps including having our certified marriage certificate and a certified copy of my birth certificate get an apostille stamp in San Diego, official translations of both documents along with my passport and then a trip to Mexicali for another document thta stated I had never been married before in Mexico. It would basically have been much of the same process to just get married in Mexico but then I wouldn't have lost the time accumulated as I did for the two years needed. They do give you a 6 month window but past that the clock goes back to zero. What made it really hard for me is that when we got married I had the time to do all the legwork and now I don't which is why I just hired an attorney here experienced in the process...

My oldest child was born in Mexico. The hospital issued a birth certificate without a fuss. The US Consulate in Guadalajara issued a State Department birth certificate on the spot for a nominal fee within 30 minutes. Then due to a pregnancy complication the doctor who delivered our first suggested that we go to the USA four months prior to the expected arrival date. He suggested the New Mexico State University hospital. Our second came CZ. New Mexico issued a birth certificate that was totally bilingual - English/Español. Each and every line on the certificate in English was repeated in Español. The Mexcian authorities would not except it insisted that we had it translated. A very costly song n dance act. They had us going from office to office, paying mordida <sp> brides and receiving no receipts. We spent 3-4 days running all over Guadalajara and dropped a couple hundred dollars as we went. Finally the approval to except and translate the bilingual certificate was granted. Mexican male friends of mind with wives from any other country have had little if any trouble which makes me think that we gueros (white boys) are not treated with an even hand.

Despite the governmental road blocks I continue to love México and the vast majority of it's people less of course the National Bureaucrats.

Tom aka Chema

[Bob Cox]

Tom... its not the whitness of your guero skin but the greeness of your dollar bills, corruption is everywhere, including the US. Any Government office you go to in Mexico has a sign on the wall that says...¨say NO to Mordidas... Report Corruption.. and an 800 number to call... If I was in the same case I would call that number. Either you believe in that principle or you dont. If you think a mordida will work ask yourself ..Is it Cost effective to pay a bribe or do it legally?? If after paying a mordida and the papers aren´t quite right, and believe me, every i must be dotted, if one name has one letter misspelled it is subject to be rejected at a later date. I cant emphasize the fact that you need to look legal papers over with a fine tooth comb before leaving a government office. The web page at Secretaria de Relaciones Exterior pretty much spells out what to do. If these petty officials cant go according to the rules...report them.

[Tom O'Brien]

Maybe things have improved since the early or maybe I got smarter but my path got smoother toward the end of my 18 year stay. I became very good friends with a Mexican lawyer who could get things done in a snap so I left the details to Memo. As my Castellano improved so did my ability to swing doors open and avert hurdles. When I return in January 2010 I anticipate smooth sailing do to colmillo (wisdom). I have learned when to hold the cards and when to pass them to Memo.