So, the van we have here in Mexico, we brought down with us from Canada. We drove it all the way down here 5 years ago and it still has Manitoba plates.
This is all legal and normal.
The Mexican government changed recently, and with that the immigration laws have changed. Where previously you could be a Temporary Resident in Mexico for as long as you wanted, you can now only renew this Visa a limited amount of times. After that, you must become a Permanent Resident.
What that means is that....come January we will need to become Permanent Residents!
Now, what this also means is that, come January, we can no longer have a foreign plated vehicle in the country. Which means that we need to legalize our van, or permanently import it into Mexico.
And that process must be completed at the US/Mexico border :-) The nearest border is to the East in Southern Texas (12 hours away), but because we lived in Chihuahua before, we are going to take the opportunity to visit there as well as import our van. So that is a 17 hour or so drive away from us, in Western Texas!
Anyways, how to legalize a vehicle in 100 easy steps???
It all depends on who you ask.
Takes the guesswork right out, doesn't it??
But no, there are laws and rules...but honestly, over the past 5 years of living here, we have seriously found that so much depends on which government official you happen to ask. One will let you through, one won't. One will require a certain paper, another won't. One will overlook a payment, another won't.
So, we have called around to several agencies at the border that work with legalizing vehicles and have also talked to several missionaries here in Guadalajara that have done this before, and narrowed it down to one agency that we believe will be helpful! We pray they will be!
Even amongst the missionaries we talked to there were variances as to how the process worked, so it's often a guessing game, and in the end, a matter of trusting the particular person or agency you are working with.
Here's the thing though...you kind of just need to go with the flow. If you can't, I really think you could get bogged down and frustrated and eventually fed up with the "injustice" of it all. I do like to have my ducks in a row and know what's going to happen, but we've seen that you don't always know, and so far, things have always worked out! Maybe not in our timing, but eventually.
Like the time we had to leave our van at the border in a priest's yard for a week because they wouldn't let it into the States or back into Mexico.
Or the other time we had to leave our van at the border for 2 weeks because they wouldn't let it into Mexico.
Both times we had paperwork on the van and both times it was circumstances beyond our control. But both times we eventually got our van back, and both times we had wonderful friends in Chihuahua that borrowed us vehicles. And I really must say that as I remember these times now, I do so with laughter as it becomes a sort of adventure.
I'm not going to pretend that I'm not a little nervous about this whole process, as the timing of it kind of needs to work out properly as we are only at the border a set amount of time before we have plans to travel into Chihuahua to visit friends and churches. But it can also be a little fun and interesting to try and figure out the procedures. My parents will be at the border with us to holiday for a week, while we do this legalizing also, so that will help to make it more interesting and less potentially stressful!
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