#141 – The Expat Files: Navigating Visa Policies, Legal Challenges, and Border Realities in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well if you stick around a while you'll find out. So, let's get started. I always get a lot of interesting emails and of course they always come with a ton of questions, which I don't mind answering at all especially when I get a lot of questions on the same topic like for example visas. And when you consider that there's 20 countries in Latin America, that means 20 different governments, 20 different legislatures, constitutions and so forth and considering that Latin American

[00:52] countries are third world and kind of chaotic in general, it's surprising in a positive way that their visa policies regarding foreigners coming to visit are so similar. And here's how it works in general. In 18 out of those 20 Latin American countries, as long as you have a first world passport, that means from the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Israel or the European Union, well 18 out of the 20 Latin American countries will let you in for a visit for 90 days just on the basis of having that first world passport. You don't need anything else. And though a few of those Latin countries will say you're only allowed in for 30 days, on a tourist visa, they'll let you renew that 30 day visa over and over again. Either at the local immigration department at any one of the big cities or if you go to any one of the land border stations, you know where you cross by car or truck, there

[01:38] they'll stamp you in for another 30 days too. And though you're only supposed to be in the country for 90 days on a tourist visit, no one's going to throw you out if you stay a few days a week or even a few months too long. Here's how it works for everybody from the first world who overstays their time. Now suppose you got a 90 day visa in Nicaragua and you stayed another 30 days, a month over, you've been there 4 months now. Well when you go to the border, what they'll generally do is this. They'll charge you a little fine for each day that you've been over. Could be 50 cents, could be a dollar. So typically you might pay 30 dollars to one of the officials at the borders if you stayed over 30 days. And nobody knows exactly how legal that is because at the border you just might be paying somebody off to get another stamp. Because that's what they'll usually do if you want to stay even longer. They'll stamp you in for another 90 days. But it always comes at a little price.

[02:23] Everything down here comes at a price. But it's a little price like I said. There are a few main ways you can stay in a Latin country a long long time. In fact you could stay for years in a country even though technically you're only on a 90 day tourist visa. Now we're talking about staying legally so that means you're always going to be up to date on your passport stamps. The entry and exit ones from that country that is. And by the way some countries down here in Latin America will give you an exit stamp and an entry stamp and some will just give you an entrance stamp, others just an exit stamp. You just never know. And what's even crazier is that in the very same Latin American country if you come in by air you'll get a stamp and if you go out by land you might not. So as far as the government goes in immigration and stamps things are always a little chaotic and unpredictable. Especially at those land borders. And by the way land borders are called frontiers, fronteras here.

[03:11] So if you're driving along the highway and you see a big sign that says frontera, se es in six kilometers which is about four miles so it's going to be a border crossing. I've driven my car through maybe hundreds of Latin borders and you'll stop and they'll check your papers, look at your passport, maybe even stamp it and wave you on through. So you're saying goodbye to one country and the country you're entering now gives you that automatic 90 day visa as long as you got a first world passport. But sometimes when driving through borders if the weather is bad especially and it's raining really hard they'll wave you right through. And why does that happen? Well, because down here in Latin America you get unbelievable downpours during the rainy season. In 10 seconds you could be soaked to the bone. Now you're dealing with government officials at the border. And like all government officials they're lazy, complacent and don't want to get up

[03:57] off their chairs to shift the weight off their dead asses unless absolutely necessary. Which in a way is a good thing. And that's why my friend expat Eddie who always has troubles at the border because he's got missing stamps or an expired visa it could be a lot of things with Eddie. He's even had his passport embargoed which means he can't leave the country without going to court for some reason or another. In other words he's in the middle of a lawsuit with somebody and the court has put a block on his passport. I know I talked a little bit about embargoes on a previous show but an expat usually doesn't have to worry about those. There's only a few situations where an expat would get an embargo put against him. One is if he got a latin girl pregnant and he didn't marry her or they had a falling out and he made no provisions to support the kid. And I'll tell you that kind of thing rarely happens with expats. But it happens to macho latin guys all the time.

[04:43] And you know it's part of our gringo advantage and our built in first world customs that gringos who do hook up with latinas and happen to have a kid usually do fulfill their responsibilities as a father and support the kid. And we do it in high style as compared to a latin guy who more often than not just skips out. And another way a first worlder could get an embargo on his passport meaning of course he won't be able to leave the country not until he goes to court and settles whatever claim has been filed against him. Anyway that can happen for example if you get in a car accident and you don't have car insurance and you don't pay off the other party if it's your fault. Or for example if you're driving a car and you hit a pedestrian or a kid on a bike and you kill him or put him in the hospital. Then they can put an embargo on you too if you don't pay up. But those situations rarely happen to smart gringos because smart gringos have lawyers

[05:29] and the first thing lawyers do is to put your car and all your property and your business if you have one into a latin american corporation which is called a societal anima. And then legally that corporation is responsible for your car not you so if you get in a car accident or for example if you own a business and a guy is working on your roof and he falls off and gets killed he can't sue you personally only the corporation that owns the business or the car. And that's why smart gringos who invest, build or buy down here always have lawyers because lawyers advise them to put everything into a corporation that insulates you and protects you from ever being sued. So the bottom line is only gringos who do not tie up their loose ends. Like I hate to say at expat eddy are ever put into the position of having an embargo put on their passports so don't worry about it just get a lawyer.

[06:16] And I talk about how to get a very good inexpensive english speaking lawyer on one of my past shows so look it up in the archives. And by the way one of these latin corporations a society that anima might cost you a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars to set up but it's worth its weight in gold because it can do a lot more for you than protect you from being sued for accidents and such if you own a business or a car or whatever. But that's another topic for another show because right now we're talking about visas and passports and borders. Anyway regarding that expat eddy is a good case in point to show you just how chaotic and unorganized latin america immigration control authorities are. Now of course what I'm going to tell you now doesn't apply to airports because airports are pretty strict. They've all got to abide by certain international regulations and restrictions and they're all connected by computer on the presumption that they can track and flag people and weed out

[07:04] certain undesirables and stuff. And of course all you first worlders up there know about that. The extreme measures that they take if you've ever been to an airport especially a first world airport. And of course since first world airlines like American and Lufthansa make a lot of stops down here to the latin american third world they've all dumped a lot of money into the airports down here so they have scanners and dogs and cameras and tons of security people down here in the international airports too. So because of that people like me and eddy and other expats can't get away with the things that we can pull off at the land border stops. For example when we're in a country like Nicaragua and we want to get an extra 90 days on our visa but we don't want to follow their technical rules to the letter that is you have to leave the country and stay away for at least two days which means you have to get a hotel in

[07:51] either Honduras or Nicaragua the bordering countries sit it out there and then come back in two days later. And during that two days you'll be sitting in a dusty horrible area of the country because the nearby towns and villages along the border stations are almost always grungy dirty dusty and ugly and full of dirt poor people trying to sell you junk and trinkets and food that you really don't want. So if you play things by the letter of the law that's what you gotta do. And most first world tourists especially low budget tourists like backpackers end up doing that because they don't know any better and they don't know the angles like us long term expats do. They flop out for two days in a crummy little town two miles from the border wait it out and then come back through the border and get another 90 day stamp and you might be wondering what kind of first world people do that every 90 days. Well like I said backpackers and people who are working off the books in some of the smaller

[08:41] tourist towns that are kind of off the main high volume tourist areas they're working as bartenders or waitresses or tourist guides at parks with Mayan or Incan ruins or they're working for tips as waiters and waitresses at expat bars and restaurants and you'll find a lot of these places off the main tourist trail. And that's where you'll run into a steady trickle of backpackers and low budget first world tourists like that. Because the thing is in Central America alone there are over 1200 Mayan ruin sites that you can visit and each one of those is going to have its little trickle of tourists first world tourists that is often with a very small town nearby of only a few thousand people and they'll always be a handful of bars and restaurants and expat establishments that cater to that small trickle of backpackers and tourists and they're always hiring backpackers

[09:28] as bartenders and waitresses and stuff off the books of course so these backpackers and low budget travelers when they're 90 days is up they head to the nearest border and pop over for two days and come back and get back to work again and some of these people do that little border trip every 90 days for years. Now expat Eddie who's notorious for letting his visa lapse sometimes for up to a year or so and I'm guilty of that too I gotta say. Anyway well he used to tell me Johnny if you're looking for a quick in and out stamp and you don't want to sit out two days in a miserable fleabag hotel in the adjacent country and you don't want to pay a big fine because you're way overdue on your visa just bring one or two of the hottest looking latin girls you can find with you to the border station and those border guards they'll treat you like visiting royalty in fact one time he was actually

[10:13] in the country with an expired US passport which is a no-no because visitors are supposed to have at least six months or more of valid time left on their passport before it expires to do any traveling at all down in Latin America in fact to be traveling anywhere in the world. So Eddie goes to the border station with his expired passport and two very hot latinas and Eddie goes to the immigration window and the guy shakes his head and looks at his passport and he goes we can't let you through with this expired passport you'll have to go back to Managua which was like 200 miles in the opposite direction back to the US embassy and get a brand new passport which Eddie knew would take about two weeks of sitting around in Managua doing nothing and Eddie had business in Honduras and the Honduras border was like 20 feet beyond the immigration control point that Eddie was standing at then Eddie pleaded

[10:59] his case he said you see those two girls over there he pointed to those two very sexy latin girls in very tight shorts sitting in the waiting area he said look tomorrow I'm supposed to do a photo shoot with those two models over there he told the guy he was in charge of a big poster campaign for Port Royal beer now Eddie mentioned Port Royal because that's one of the most famous beers in Honduras and then he said the guy cracked a huge smile and that's all it took the guy stamped Eddie's expired passport and they walked right through but like Eddie said a trick like that won't work if the immigration inspector is a woman brilliant observation Eddie duh and like I said a trick like that would never work at an international airport only at a land border control stop and by the way that macho thing works for European girls and gringas too and first world ladies if you have blonde hair

[11:47] and blue eyes or anything close to it you'll never have trouble at the border either no matter how long you've overstayed your visa this time it said gringa advantage working full time for you just remember that when you come down here man or woman you have at least two or three points added to your first world scale so if you were a four up in the states in Latin America you're automatically a six or seven and while we're talking about this stuff let's get superficial for a moment here for example as for me up in the states I was probably about a six in the looks department I actually joined a rock band in high school to get any of the good-looking girls to take any notice of me at all and if you haven't figured it out already playing guitar adds a few points to your score too but down here just because I'm a gringo I'm an eight or a nine and of course that gringo advantage only works when you're off the tourist trail so all you Joe average expat wannabes up there

[12:35] don't think you're gonna come down to Costa Rica or Panama and hang out with the super models better to stay in Cleveland and take up the guitar but when you're off the tourist trail Bolivia Nicaragua Peru Honduras there really are no limits to the gringo advantage so go ahead and set your sights high but back to visas passports and border controls now remember when I said that expat Eddie brought two hot Latin American girls to help him smooth out some of his passport problems well that reminds me of a very positive development that's just happened down here in Central America which is strange because most Latin American countries can't agree on anything together including the actual state of where their borders lie because in fact right now Costa Rica and Nicaragua are fighting over a border dispute and that's been going on for who knows how many dozens of years Guatemala

[13:21] and Belize are forever fighting over borders then there's Venezuela and Colombia who practically went to war recently over a border so in a fact Latin American countries can't agree on much of anything but they did agree in Central America on having a Central American ID card called by its letters DPI it's a national identification document about as big as a driver's license that's got a personal identity chip in it now before this little plastic card came along persons would be identified as citizens of their country by bringing in their birth certificate to the Ministadio publico which is the public ministry and getting a document called a Sedula and since every city or department gave out its own Sedula they looked a little different and had different stamps and they weren't exactly quite the same there was a lot of variation among them which meant a big country like Mexico or Colombia or Argentina might have

[14:11] as many as 20 different Sedula types different colors shapes and sizes and each one had its own particular signatures stamps and seals too and you need this Sedula to get a driver's license or sign up for school or vote or open a bank account or cash a check but because each country had so many styles and variations on these settlers and until just a few years ago the municipalities that issued them weren't even hooked up by computer there were a lot of forgeries going around especially around election time where politicians would get their cronies to vote and vote often by handing out a bunch of false settlers and sending those partisan cronies off to various polling places with different settlers reminds me of Mayor Daley in Chicago actually but that was a few years ago now everybody's got this personal ID card and what's

[14:56] happened lately which is kind of nice is that the country of Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Belize, Nicaragua and El Salvador have now got an agreement so that you can take your ID card and go through the border of any of those countries without doing anything just walking through and showing your card you don't have to have a passport you don't have to sign any papers they just scan it and you're in so those six central american countries have allowed their citizens to cross between countries without a problem without a fuss without lines and without paperwork and without paying a fee and by the way paying a fee let's talk about that for a second now if you're a latin american you don't have to pay when you go through borders not usually and when you do it's gringo prices versus local prices again typically gringos will pay five or ten times what the locals will pay if we pay 20 bucks they pay two bucks though in the instances of latin american countries

[15:45] that don't permit their own latin american neighbors to visit their country without going to the embassy and getting an official visa like for example mexico did you know that if you're a citizen of any one of those other 19 latin american countries and you try to go to mexico you can't just walk in you gotta go to the mexican embassy in your country and get an official visa and that's probably gonna cost you 30 bucks and it's not just about the 30 bucks you're gonna have to show proof of bank accounts and long-term employment in your own country and that you have a credit card with at least a 2000 us dollar credit limit and mexico does that because they know everybody comes through mexico to sneak into the united states and they know rightly so that there are millions of illegal aliens sitting in mexico right now illegal aliens from other latin

[16:32] american countries that are just waiting their turn just biding their time for the moment that they can sneak into the states and to try to minimize that it's become a long arduous process to get legal entry into mexico but like the war on drugs it hasn't worked really at all because mexico's border on the south with guadamal and belize is as porous as a sieve and it's been estimated that of all the latin foreigners in mexico right now that is people from other latin american countries only one in 20 sitting in mexico right now has a legal mexican visa that they got from the embassy but that's another story we're talking about central america and dpi personal id card that allows those residents to pass between six different latin american countries in central america without lifting a finger just passing right on through now if you

[17:18] have noticed there was one country conspicuously left out in that central american list of countries and that's costa rica which always makes people wonder why can't other central american citizens go in and out of costa rica with simply a dpi card well it turns out that the costa rican government did not sign that official document that allows that free passage because they have a built-in prejudice against nikka ragwens coming into their country for that matter they don't like panamanians much either but the prejudice is really against nikka ragwens who costa ricans have a very low opinion of and they deem them as irresponsible freeloaders and lawbreakers and even thieves which me and every other expat knows is pure bs but costa ricans have that prejudice and here's the other thing because costa rica does not allow open free access through its borders

[18:06] to the other nearby central american countries when other latins from adjacent countries do want to visit costa rica they have to pay 20 bucks each time they go through and they have to show proof that they have money on them and a return bus ticket and the kicker is other latins only get a 30-day visa which is very difficult for them to renew whereas first world people get an automatic 90-day visa which is a cinch to renew which is another example of that costa rican better than now uppity attitude that they have towards their neighbors because of all those gringo dollars that have contaminated the place and believing their own pr that they're the switzerland of latin america well yeah they are the switzerland of latin america in one respect in regards to the cost of living just like the real switzerland they have the highest cost of living in the area but of course

[18:52] the pr machine never talks about that but let's talk about expat tourist visas again so what about that business when your 90 days is up and you have to go to the border and spend a couple of days out of the country before you can come back in and get another 90 days well guess what long-term expats know that you don't have to do that at all if you've got a lawyer like i always recommend what most long-term expats do is they drop their passport off at their lawyer's office and miraculously a day or two later there's a 90 day stamp in it again hmm doesn't seem quite legal now does it but it's also true that at some of those borders some of the immigration guys will give you another 90 day visa stamp and let you walk right back in without staying a few nights in a crummy border

[19:37] town for an extra little kickback of maybe 20 to 50 bucks and is that 100 up board and legal certainly not but it sure cuts through the crap now doesn't it which is yet another reason why expats love it down here so much oh and yeah that method of dropping your passport off at your lawyer's office and having those passport stamps and miraculously appear well that doesn't come for free either it'll cost you 50 or maybe 100 bucks too and is that illegal i got to say it's in a gray area but the stamps and the registration through the system is perfectly legal and above board the only thing is you didn't stay a couple of days out of the country like you're supposed to do but if you want to play it like that save 50 or 100 bucks and stay at a fleabag hotel well that's your call but no season expat that i know ever does that so now you're

[20:26] wondering well why don't you just get residency then you don't have to go through all of that stuff right well that's a decision you have to make between you and your own lawyer because residency can be good in some ways but if you want to really stay off the radar sometimes it's better just to do the 90 day thing forever and ever because then you're considered kind of a perpetual traveler and no one can really keep tabs on you and the only time you'll ever feel like big brother is breathing down your throat is every few years when you'll have to go back to some u.s embassy or another and get more pages stapled into your passport and these days flying under the radar is more popular than you think ask eddie and eddie prefers that because he left a few loose ends up in the first world like a lot of expats who are escaping one thing or another a bad divorce or two

[21:11] alimony payments bankruptcy unhappy creditors support payments gambling debts crazy axes and relatives court judgments garnishments you name it there's a thousand and one reasons why people want to stay off the radar and topping the list these days is big brother eddie says he'd rather not have his fingerprints all over a particular country with his name flowing through all those official computers and stuff and that's what'll happen if you do attempt to get residency down here in latin america first world big brother is definitely going to know where you are because you see for your lawyer to start that process throughout most of latin america the requisite is you'll have to buy some property buy a house build a house start a business or prove that you have a monthly income from outside sources of a minimum of about 800 to a thousand bucks a month

[21:58] and by the way if you get a social security check that's usually enough and you have to get police and court records from your home state to prove you're clean and i have my doubts if expat eddie could pass any of those tests and now the new requisite is that you have to get an fbi report on yourself and that takes a few months to get anyway it's a bit complicated to get that residency a lot more complicated than it was just a few years ago and that's because u.s big brother is putting pressure on these governments to keep track of its citizens and i'm sure that's not because of terrorism that's because they just want to extract more taxes out of you if they can and they want to know where you are so they can do that at some future date which is another reason why a certain percentage of expats prefer not to get their residency but personally i know of a lot of expats who've liquidated their properties holdings and bank accounts and stuff

[22:44] up in the first world so even if the irs or whoever tried to go after them for any reason at all there's just nothing for them to get and down here in latin america as long as an expat keeps everything he has in a latin american corporation the united states has no jurisdiction at all and never will and that's why all long-term expats down here have a nice working relationship with their lawyer but if you do decide to get that residency which in some cases works quite well for expats anyway that first residency visa that you'll get will be a temporary residency for probably two years at first then after that two years if you have a nice clean record and you haven't been sued by anybody you haven't impregnated any innocent latin teenagers or punched out any traffic cops you haven't got busted for crack and you haven't run over any

[23:31] pedestrians with your suv well then you'll get a permanent residency anyway you'll get one of those nice personal identification cards i was talking about so if you're living in central america you won't need your passport just that little plastic id card to travel back and forth between those six central american countries i was talking about so bottom line all you first world folks up there you do not need a visa you don't have to fill any paperwork or go to any embassy to visit 18 of the 20 latin american countries and as soon as you land at the airport or drive through the land border you'll get a 90 day visa automatically and it'll be stamped 90 days on your passport and i said that's true of 18 latin american countries but what about the other two well those other two are cuba and brazil those are the exceptions to the rule as far as cuba goes first of

[24:18] all u.s citizens aren't supposed to visit there without permission and all prospective visitors from any country are supposed to go to a cuban embassy somewhere and fill out the forms and get a visa there which might take like a half an hour then you have to come back a few days later to get it but guess what that's just what the cuban law says but it's not reality because actually they love tourists of any kind especially ones with u.s dollars and euros you see cuba doesn't export anything except cigars and disgruntled people and they need international currencies to survive so that's why they love tourists even u.s tourists so how do you get to cuba if you're a u.s tourist and what about that visa well you can fly to cuba from any latin american major airport and if you're an american you get there and they don't stamp your passport they just welcome you with open arms they smile and let you write in you and your dollars but let me just warn you the official

[25:06] places that you're kind of led to as a tourist by travel agents and stuff and by tourist guides on the island itself i'm talking about the bars and hotels shopping places beach resorts and stuff well you're talking about first world prices so you're not going to get a deal and although if you're let's say in mexico and you're at a travel agent and they got a great package deal going to cuba for three or four days or even a week well that's cool and usually you'll be in an all inclusive resort but going out at night and eating and entertainment you're not going to get those latin american prices that i'm talking about that you get off the tourist track cuba is definitely now on the tourist trail so you'll get no deals but it is a very cool place to visit and in most places off the big hotel and mall strips it is like walking back 50 years in time but let's talk

[25:53] about brazil now it's the other country that you actually have to go down and apply for a visa before you can get in that means you have to go to the nearest brazilian embassy so good luck you guys in cleveland anyway what brazil's done with their immigration and tourism visas is very logical what they've done is this every country that makes brazilians get a visa before they can come in brazil does the same thing to their citizens so the united states says brazilians have to go down to the u.s embassy pay 50 bucks and fill out a bunch of paperwork so brazil reciprocates and says hey you'll have to do the same thing so it's exactly the same price to get into brazil for an american as it is to get into the united states as a brazilian and you have to fill out a ton of paperwork too and show that you have a job and credit cards and bank accounts and all that crap too actually what it is is a kind of a governmental revenge of the brazilians you

[26:42] make it difficult for our citizens to travel to your country we'll do the same to you you charge 50 or 100 bucks to get in yours we'll do the same thing right back to you you got to give him credit for standing up to the big boys like that don't you oh yeah and by the way remember i was telling you about expat eddie and those two beautiful models that he brought with him well eddie told me that bringing those girls along actually worked maybe too good when he was at that border control office caused such a hubbub that all eight of the male border guards took a break shut the place down for 15 minutes just to get autographs and have their pictures taken with those girls which once again proves that sexy girls can cut through red tape like butter and of course american gringas can do the same and they don't even have to be sexy just a touch on the blonde side because remember there are really no blondes down here in latin america for that matter no blue or green

[27:29] eyes either so if you got it flaunt it south of the border down mexico you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border and don't forget you can email me on anything at all about latin america the expat files at gmail dot com once again the expat files at gmail dot com see you next time