No motor home permit and no tourist permit

If the rig hits with a PFP or SSP reten...

The jig's up...

I would do research as to timely reports about the existence or not of retenes on major highways.

The reten has to be within cellular reception of a tower.

If these folks have so far isolated themselves from reality then no amount of tips and warnings may have an effect.

Again, when a motor vehicle gets connected to a tow truck headed for a corralon federal, say goodbye to the vehicle. An underwriter always checks with Aduana to see if a vehicle has been confiscated before a theft claim is processed.

Acquaintances of friends claim they were fined 55,000 pesos when their vehicle was found to have phony importation documents. The vehicle had valid Guerrero license plates.

Something that I would not personally treat lightly.

If all else fails have them go on the west coast up to Sonoyta and cross at Lukeville and just tell them you were at Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) that is in the Zona libre, it might work.

navergator

When we came back to the states in Dec. 2016, we stopped at Punta Vista RV Park, (Edgar and Anna's) in Santa Ana for the night and there was an older person there with a small pick-up and a pop up camp trailer. We chatted with her a while and she had no idea what she needed or where she was going, just into Mexico. We told her about FMMs and that she was probably OK without a TIP in the free zone, explained what they all were, and since we don't plan on returning to Mexico anytime soon, I gave her our old Churches book. I also spoke to Edgar about her so hope things turned out OK for her.

As stated above-don't get caught, drive very carefully and just roll into the US with every body part crossed for luck.

The problem is not the Visa (FMM), it is the RV and or other vehicle that they introduced in to Mexico with out getting a TEMPORARY IMPORT PERMIT (TIP) those can be confiscated and or a hefty fine levied.

navegator

The key here seems to be not having two "undocumented" US citizens' property seized before crossing the border back into the US. Therefore, since it is so easy to get a VISA (FMM) when flying into Mexico, why can't they fly to the US (Mexico doesn't seem to care whether you have an FMM when crossing to the US) and take a return flight to Mexico under which they will receive and pay for FMMs and use these FMMs at various checkpoints while driving in Mexico and subsequently crossing the US border. All of this assumes that they DO HAVE a valid passport with them.

At one time we just chucked them. But once they started scanning your passport and the FMM at time of purchase we decided to follow the law. I think we have done this 3 times. They used to look at them and throw them out, Now they scan the document and print out a paper for their records. Sorry, Not much helpful information. We have turned in permits that were 3 weeks past due. What a system.

Moisheh

Yes, it's stupid to not follow the rules of a country that one is visiting. In this case, the people involved should have taken the time, or done the homework to realize that they needed a vehicle and personal permits. They didn't. They can make all of us look really bad, and in the worst case scenario, lose their vehicle and have serious hassles.
Hopefully, they will slide by and learn from their ignorance.

You can ask but most INM offices make it abundantly clear that they would rather not deal with surrendered FMM's.

However they are most accommodating when addressing permanent resident card processing. There are so many "holes" at the border for people to pass through without getting an FMM the migras have no hope of organizing permit data files.

They rely instead on the threat of implied sanctions when someone is discovered missing an FMM beyond the border zone.

An extraneous forfeits a significant amount of protection offered when possessing a valid FMM.

The last three years, we have made a point of asking at the border when our FMM's were issued (Sonoyta, Tijuana and Nogales) and asking if and where we needed to turn them in. Each time we were told no, they just expired, and they throw them away immediately without doing anything with them. In Tijuana we asked two different people.

I had it explained to me that Canadians make a point of turning in their FMMs and getting their passports stamped to prove their entry and exit dates for insurance purposes.

There was an in depth discussion on this maybe a year ago, with many people chiming in and having been told exactly the same thing in different locations.

No war started, just information to share!