I’m sad to say I never did.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved visiting on the trips I took with my friend, Jim. We took a couple trips down there in 2020 and again in 2022. We loved it.

Above, my late friend Jim Magee and me in CDMX

So why was I unable to love it on subsequent solo trips?

These are the things I just couldn’t warm up to.1

1. It’s a flat city. It’s not vertical. For a city of 20+ million people, it’s surprisingly spread out. It shouldn’t matter, but large cities should be vertical.

2. Public transit isn’t great. It’s overcrowded and frankly you do just as much walking to and from the subways as you do in most cities with much poorer public transportation options.

3. It’s not cheap. Nor should it be, necessarily. But I got it in my head that the city shouldn’t compete in price with Madrid, for example. I know this is me being a privileged twat.

4. It’s neither an early nor a late city. I’m an early person myself. But nothing really gets going until at least 8:00 AM. And most things, apart from nightlife, close (what I would consider) early.

5. For whatever reason, I rarely connected with locals. I take all the blame for this. This is entirely on me (old, introvert, etc). But rarely have I felt lonely in large cities anywhere I’ve been in the world. Why was Mexico City different?

I’ve been struggling since I retired in 2024 to either fall in love with Mexico or give up on it. It’s a country that means a lot to me. I spent many months as a young man there, dreaming of the day I would live there.

It’s actually been something of a crisis to find out I’m different now. Mexico is different, too. I’m sad about it.

I’ve visited several other cities, mainly Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. But I was mugged by both thieves and cops in Guadalajara. I just can’t convince myself to give it a second chance. PV was great but it’s gringos as far as the eye can see. It’s not for me.2

I’m going to give Mexico the benefit of the doubt and accept that I’m the asshole. And I’m very sad about it.

Above, The Asshole

I’ll start by providing the TL;DR.

Step 1. Fill out the online temporary residency renewal application at https://www.gob.mx/inm. Print it.

If you know your CURP, you don’t need to sign in and the form will prefill.

This URL changes from time to time. So, if it’s a dead link, google it.

Step 2. Make an appointment. Print the confirmation with QR code.

You have to sign into your account on the INM website to do this step.

Remember the numero de pieza is the number on your renewal application and numero de documento is your passport number. If you have a new passport as I did, you can enter that info at the same time you do the application.

Step 3. Show up at the appointed date and time and wait to be called.

The entrance for renewals is on the eastside of the INM building in Polanco, Mexico City.

Present your appointment confirmation, renewal application, your passport and a copy of your passport’s information page, and your original temporary residency card and a copy. There is one more document you’ll need, which I talk about below.

Step 4. Pay the fee for the 3 year renewal which was around $550 USD on the date I did mine.

Step 5. Do your biometrics and receive your new card, good for 3 years.

You might have to come back to do the biometric collection process or you might get lucky and be able to do it same day. I had to come back the following day.

That’s it. Done!

Actually, the TL;DR is pretty much how it went down.

They do ask a question or two. Like for example, I was asked again what I do for a living even though that info was provided already for the visa and in the Formato Basico a year prior and on the same day of the renewal. Later, when I was doing the biometrics, I was asked the amount of my monthly income. While easy enough, I do think they are slightly testing the applicant to make sure the info is consistent.

I also had a small issue with the basis of my renewal, which is “una condicon ortorgada por otras circumstancias.” As someone who is not working in Mexico or joining a spouse or on a religious mission, I had to provide a statement that I am retired and living on a pension or savings or investments or whatever.1

I was provided with a blank piece of paper on which I scrawled the authorized condition, copying exactly the legal language on the instruction form and providing that I was retired and living on savings and investments.

That’s pretty much it. Any questions?

Thanks for reading.

1. In line at the Mexico City INM in Polanco by 5:30 AM;

2. Same day appointment obtained by 9:30 AM after pre-screening my paperwork;

3. Returned at 1:30 PM for appointment; done by 4:30 PM (mostly waiting);

4. Back the next day at 7:30 AM for biometrics and issuance of the CANJE1;

5. CANJE in hand and out the door by 11 AM.

Today I’m bringing you a follow up on my last post regarding how I successfully got my Mexico temporary residency visa.

So after a long struggle of trying to decide where to land in Mexico, which you can read a bit about here, I finally decided to stick to the plan and go to Mexico City.

In the linked article above, I discuss a bit about how there is conflicting information online regarding whether the INM requires proof of one’s Mexico address and in what form. This was a major worry for me because I was not then, nor am I now sure exactly where I want to rent a longer term place to stay.

Regardless, I flew down on a Monday (May 13) on a domestic flight from Cd. Juárez (I live in El Paso), and planned to go to the office of the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) in Polanco, early Tuesday morning.

The airport in Cd. Juárez has an immigration kiosk where they issue FMMs. The official there took a minute to review my visa. He then took my filled-out FMM and marked the CANJE box and wrote in 30 days, and stamped it. He then stamped the visa in my passport.

So as planned, I woke up around 4 AM on Tuesday and hailed a DiDi ride by 5 AM, and got to the INM office from my hotel in Centro Historico by 5:30 AM. I got in line with about 50 people ahead of me. Within half an hour, there were at least 50 people behind me.

I waited in line for about two and a half hours before the gates opened and we were all let into a small courtyard in front of the INM building. There, INM officials had a table set up with three officers reviewing everybody’s paperwork.

By 9:30 AM, I was standing in front of the table handing over mis papeles. The man who reviewed my Formato básico de datos and Formato para solicitar trámite migratorio de estancia, along with my visa and passport, seemed surprised I entered Mexico by land. It took him a minute to also realize the visa was issued on the basis of solvencia económica. I was not asked for proof of my Mexico address. I used my hotel for my address on the form.

It turns out that the majority of people at this INM office were not the stereotypical retired American most common in places like Puerto Vallarta and Playa del Carmen. Rather they were Colombians, Peruvians, Argentinians, Chinese, Haitians, an orthodox Jew from who knows where, a priest and a nun, and a surprisingly large number of españoles. Their bases for obtaining residency status, I’m sure, spanned the gamut.

Anyway, the young official who helped me wrote a small triangle at the top of my paperwork and passed me on to the lady next to him, who scribbled the date and my 1:30 PM appointment next to the triangle. By then, it was 9:30 AM. I was then free to roam until my appointment.

Me, before freely roaming a bit before coming back for my 1:30 PM appointment

After walking around a while, checking out the exterior of Carlos Slim’s Museo Soumaya, which is nearby, and hanging out in the Deportivo Decathlon sporting goods store, I returned at the appointed time and stood in front of a side entrance to the INM building until they called up all the 1:30 PM people. We were then let in and directed to the far end of the building where we stood in line for about 15 minutes until there was space to sit down on bench-like seating against the eastern and northern walls.

Above, Museo Soumaya. It was closed.

As the next in line was called up to an available taquilla, we all scooted down to the the next vacated seat like some official version of musical chairs, rotating to the next row of seats as we each reached the end of the row. This felt so ridiculous that I audibly laughed after about 20 minutes of this. Everyone else also seemed to find it amusing.

Anyway, once it was my turn, I went to taquilla 18, and stood in front of a young woman who took my paperwork, had me sign a few pages, and then asked me to have a seat.

Forty five minutes later, she handed back some of the paperwork and directed me to another office where another young lady prepared my Clave Única de Registro de Población. She then told me to come back Wednesday for the biometric process and to pick up my CANJE or residency card. It was by then 4:30 PM. I was done for the day.

The next morning, I decided to take the Metro instead of a DiDi back to the INM office. I had taken it back to the hotel the previous afternoon and enjoyed the big city experience of the masses crushed into subway cars moving at high speeds through dark tunnels. Mexico City is an infinite city and the Metro is a good place to observe it.

I got to the Polanco stop and leisurely walked 20 minutes to the INM office. I had the opportunity to stroll through some very toney areas of Polanco, Mexico City’s richest neighborhood as far as I know.

The Mansions spanned from mid century to ultra modern and many had guards at the front gates. There were not a small number of luxury condo buildings in the area as well.

Polanco has a large number of Jews living there, and you see Jewish men and the occasional teenager out and about wearing their yarmulkes. There was even a Jewish community center and school behind the INM.

Once I got to the INM around 7:30 AM, I stood in a much shorter line for about 45 minutes until we were let in and directed up some stairs to a freezing room with one official sitting at one of about a dozen taquillas who took our CURP and other paperwork and had us sit down. Other officials were streaming in one by one until about 9:30 AM when the first of about 40 of us were called up.

When my turn came, the official’s first question was “habla español?” I told him yes, and he relaxed a bit as did I. We went through the usual biometric details, height, weight, profession, etc. He then took three digital pictures: front, left profile, right profile. Then he did the digital fingerprints and the iris scan. He handed back my paperwork and directed me to wait in a room just outside the larger room we were in.

There, I was joined by four españoles, a family of Norwegians, some people from Colombia, and another European family of undetermined origin.

I waited and waited. Every person who was attended to after me got their CANJE before I did. I was getting worried until finally my name was called, and I was done and out of there. It was about 11 AM by that time.

Above, I’m official.

The overall experience was fine. The INM officials work hard. Yes, it took a while and I’m sure there is room for efficiency improvements but I have no complaints. There were no less than 200 people who got appointments the same day I did, and many more were attended to and very likely given information to make their next attempt a success.

You can imagine how tempers might flare with the number of people and long waits, but everybody got through it without angry outbursts. And they had plenty of security on hand if something had happened.

Hats off to the INM!

Edit: I would like to add that it is probably easier if you speak Spanish. It’s not like you are going to be engaged in a difficult conversation if your Spanish is low to intermediate, but it sure makes the process go more smoothly.

There are plenty of lawyers and lay facilitators that will help you for a fee, but they are not necessary if you speak Spanish and have the time to wait in line.

For me as a US lawyer, I liked the challenge of trying to figure it out. If you are pressed for time or easily frustrated, then a lawyer or facilitator is the way to go.

This is how I got to that point and beyond for anyone who might be interested.

Your first step is to ignore the website for the El Paso consulate. It is hard to understand despite providing detailed instructions in English. However, I was able to consult the webpages for Mexico’s consulates in other cities to figure out precisely what I needed to do. For some reason, every consulate maintains its own page and the quality and accuracy of the info varies widely.

The second step is to go to the consulate to inquire about obtaining whatever visa you’re after. I can spare you this step because all they’ll do is give you a slip of paper with an email address like the one below. Then, they’ll send you away.

The third step is to email them and tell them what you want. I wanted a temporary residency visa valid for a year. The consulate’s reply informed me that I needed to provide the necessary paperwork attached to my reply to their reply, and then I would be provided with an appointment.1

This is what you need (for US citizens):

1. Valid passport and a copy of the page with your personal details

2. Application, filled out and printed on both sides with signature

3. One passport sized photo (2 in. x 2 in. in color without glasses)

4. Proof of financial solvency in the form of 12 months of original account statements indicating pension income, savings or investment balances, or regular employment income and copies of all 12 months

Incredibly, that’s it. But be aware that “original” account statements means statements mailed to you from your financial institution.2

I chose to provide electronic copies of an investment account and received my appointment a day or two later. The appointment was about three weeks from the date of my reply to their reply.

When I got to the Consulate at 910 E. San Antonio Ave, I was checked in by a clerk who then directed me to have a seat. I then waited about 30 minutes to be called to a window, much like a teller window in a bank. The young lady who helped me couldn’t have been nicer. She spoke slowly and repeated herself when she could tell I didn’t quite get that last part.

I paid US$53 at a separate ventanilla and sat down for another half hour before I was called back to the first window where I got my passport back with the visa neatly pasted to a blank passport page.

The immigration officer helpfully explained that I had six months to enter Mexico from the date of issue. After that, the visa expires and I would have to reapply. She also explained that I needed to present the visa to the official at the Mexican port of entry (airport or border) and obtain a dated passport stamp that starts the clock for renewal in one year. Furthermore, I will have to visit the local immigration office (INM) once I land and find a place to live to apply for my national identity card.

One issue worth noting is that proof of financial solvency is not quite as easy as it used to be because Mexico is not as inexpensive as it used to be.

These are the required minimums.

1. Pension or employment income = 300 days of the daily minimum wage for Mexico City or about US$4,500 per month

2. Savings or investment balances = 5000 days of the daily minimum wage for Mexico City or about US$75,000

3. If you have dependents, add another 100 days of the daily minimum wage for Mexico City or about US$1,500 per dependent

The Mexican peso as of this writing is hovering around MXN$17.00 to one US dollar. That’s pretty expensive but it’s an election year. I’ve noticed over the years that the peso gets a boost every election cycle and then comes back down to earth once it’s over. So, the solvency test could ease a bit by this time next year.

And that’s how it works.

Credit to Sor Juana for blocking my personal details