This morning I returned to the "Instituto Nacional de Migración" for what I hoped would be the final step in obtaining my Mexican residency visa. I was going to take public transportation to get there, but Alejandro insisted on driving me. We arrived around 9:30, a half hour after the office opened. The lady yesterday said that I would not have to wait in line this time, and it was true that I was able to enter the building without standing in line. However, when I went to the "biometrics" office I found it already crowded with perhaps as many 100 people who had come for their residency card. There were people from all over the world. "Gringos" were definitely in the minority. There were a lot of people from Asia, several from the Middle East, some whose names sounded Russian or Ukrainian, and people from other Latin American nations. I handed in my paperwork, sat down, and waited. The employees at the counters called out names. The large room was a bit of an echo chamber, and I worried that I would not hear my name when it was called.
After waiting for about an hour, I heard my name. The fellow who had called over me looked at the "CURP" (Unique Population Registry Code) document that I had received the previous day and recorded some information. He said to take a seat again and that I would be called again in a few minutes. It was just a few minutes later that another guy called me up. He looked at my passport and took my fingerprints, not with ink, but with some sort of scanner. Then a white screen was lower behind me, and three photos were taken, one from the front and two in profile. I was told to return to my seat. In a few minutes he called me back and handed me my residency card. The photo is terrible, but I am now a legal resident of Mexico.
¡Felicitaciones!
ReplyDelete¡Muchas gracias, Megan!
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