Minor Miracles…
So I have been working on getting my FM3 for myself and my business partner, Dave, for the last month or so. I submitted the paperwork on the 27th of August and was told to come back in eight days to pick up the FM3′s, which I knew was wishful thinking but I follow directions well anyway. I have been going back every week or so, but I am pretty sure that the papers won’t be done until the end of August. No big deal, I am in tramite so I am legal to work.
Dave has his other home in Galveston, Texas, so this last week he decided he probably needed to go back to take care of the damages that were caused by Hurricane Ike. He let me know on Sunday that he was going to be leaving on Friday, so I should probably do something with immigration. I told him that probably wasn’t enough time, but I would see what I could do.
Last Monday morning I went in to immigration to ask for a permiso for Dave to leave and enter the country. I wasn’t sure of the process, but I had written a letter asking for permission. When I got to immigration, I was given a list of things I would need, about eight items. I went back home and got the stuff together and was back in immigration in about an hour. I waited in their office for four more hours and finally at about 3:30 I was done with submitting the process and was out of the office.
They told me to come back on Thursday, I had no faith that on Thursday the paperwork would be ready and I told Dave that he might not be leaving, he assured me that everything would work out.
I went back on Thursday morning at 8:30am and got my number. After waiting for a while, they called our number and Dave and I went to the counter to get the paperwork. I gave the clerk the file number and he looked it up, it was not done yet. The guys at immigration usually have a pretty good attitude, he joked about why would anyone want to go back to the US right now anyway?
He looked through the papers I had brought with me, everything was fine except at some point I had lost the payment receipt for the $260 peso payment to immigration. I had copies, just not the original. He suggested that I go get a new bank payment and he would draw up the paperwork for the permit to exit.
I ran to the HSBC on Juarez but the line was out the door. My next option was Santander, three blocks up. I made it there and despite the small line at Santander I was back in immigration in 15 minutes.
I got back, I made the payment, we got the letter of permission to leave the country(in triplicate), all was good. Its a minor miracle.
