El Semanario (Mexico City)

● The Chamber of Deputies has made changes to Mexico's Migration Law that directly impact Central American citizens.

With a change made to the Migration Law, now foreign visitors that arrive in or transit Mexico will be able to do so [remain] for up to seven days. [sic]*

The Migration Affairs Committee … approved the amendment to the Migration Law, increasing the time a foreigner, characterized as a regional visitor, can remain in the country.

The change to Article 52, Section III, of said regulation replaces the three days that foreigners had been authorized to stay in Mexico, under conditions of a visitor sojourn and endorsed by the Regional Visitor Card (TVR).

The TVR is a migration tool designed to facilitate entry into Mexico by Guatemalan and Belizean citizens, and foreigners that reside permanently in those countries, enabling them to travel legally and freely to Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Quintana Roo as often as they want for up to three calendar days per occasion.

The Committee said that the Mexican embassies in Guatemala and Belize, where TVR's are issued, and the National Migration Institute, reported that during the first half of 2015 a regular migratory flow of 792,970 people was recorded, thus making it necessary to adapt the legal framework in order to help to improve Mexican territorial control of the entry and exiting of people.

Foreigners, who leave an economic impact that drives the growth of the states where they are authorized to travel, benefit the tourism, hotel, restaurant, commercial establishment, recreational center, and fair sectors.

(…)

* Following fruitless searches of the Chamber of Deputies' Gaceta Parlamentaria, and Mexico's Diario Oficial, it appears that this amendment has yet to be promulgated.  For additional reference, see: http://sitl.diputados.gob.mx/LXIII_leg/cuadros_comparativos/1PO1/0124-1PO1-15.pdf, Oct. 6, 2015 (in Spanish)

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News report, El Semanario (Mexico City), Feb. 19, 2016; edited translation by MexiData.info