Immigration Timeout

Yep, let's take some time out to talk about this. Especially for those of you who are thinking of coming to Central America for a volunteering period or an artistic residency.

If you are not a Central American citizen, from what is called the CA-4 space, you have to leave the region every 3 months. This means that on entering any one of the four countries comprising CA-4 space (remember the Schengen space in Europe), you have 90 days to leave that space, not just that country.

So far so good. The problem is that the nearest borders depend on where you are. I am currently in Xela, which has a border close by with Mexico. However, Mexico requires you on your first visit inbound, to say 4 days before you return to CA-4 space via the border with Guatemala. Afterwards, you can easily go in and out in 24 hours.

This I discovered to my detriment, on an odyssey that took all day. I went to Tecun Uman with the intention of crossing the border to Ciudad Hidalgo about two weeks ago. I was spectacularly unsuccesful. I wanted to exit as an Australian citizen from Guatemala, and go in and out of Mexico the same way, but re-enter Guatemala with my DUI. I failed. For many reasons.

What is a DUI you may ask? It is the Salvadorean identity card, which I obtained in December last year, just for this purpose. Whaddya mean, I hear you wonder. Well... this is the deal: El Salvador is part of the CA-4 space. As a citizen of a member country of the CA-4 space, I have 90 days in each country, separately, not collectively. This gives me a bit of leeway in the space, which means that instead of having  90 days in Guatemala, Honduras,  El Salvador and Nicaragua, I have 90 days in Guatemala full stop. I also have 90 days in Honduras, full stop. And 90 days in Nicaragua, full stop. Plus, no need to show a passport, only the DUI. So far so good.

Well, that was not the case on the Mexican border, even though, legally I should be allowed to enter Guatemala as a salvadorean with my DUI from any border. I am not sure if I was told a barefaced lie by the people who usually do the transaction at the border or not. These were not immigration officials. They were guys who do this for money. So maybe they just wanted money out of me. This little joke cost me a whole day's journey to Tecun Uman, plus the bus fares to get there, the tuk-tuk fare from the bus terminal to the border and back and the return bus fares to Xela. It was crazy. It was also highly uncomfortable. Which was why I decided to regularise my status ASAP.

You want to know how I did that. Easy. Not. Back in March 2012 I queued up to get my passport issued. The salvadorean one. Little did I know. This turned into another Ulyssian effort. The passport office told me my DUI only had one last name. This was unacceptable to them because on the database my last passport showed up as having two last names. Paternal and maternal.

For the uninitiated to Latin American names, all of us carry our paternal and maternal last names with us legally and pass on our paternal names to our children. Ad nauseam. Ad infinitum. So, usually, a document of identity with only one last name is deemed incomplete.

So the passport office sent me to the DUI Centro to change my DUI. They were huffy about it and sent me to the equivalent of the Attorney General's Department to get my name changed legally with a Statutory Declaration.

When I got there, they told me that was the wrong thing to do and sent me to another government office: the Register for Natural Persons. They gave me other advice and told me that they could give me a statutory declaration that I didn't need a name change and that I could elect to use both my parents' names on my DUI. You would think this would be a same day thing. Uh, uh. No way.

They told me to ring in a week to see if the document was ready. I did. Nobody answered. I rang the following week and finally, the guy who was delegated to draft the document answered. He told me he needed a week or two to look at my file and draft the document, so I told him I would come and see him before Easter. I did. The guy still had not drafted anything coz he needed to discuss it in person. Argh!

So, when we met up in person he gave me two options:
(a) keep my documents all with two last names and get my DUI modified through an authorisation issued by his office; or
(b) get my birth certificate modified and have everything with one last name.

I decided to take option (a). I was leaving for Honduras the same day, so I had to pick up the authorisation the Tuesday after Easter.

Finally, I picked up the document, went with it to the DUI Centro and queued up for 2 hours until they finally gave me what I wanted: my modified DUI with two last names. I then headed off to the passport office, where I had to wait for 4 and a half hours before I could get my passport issued. But I got it. Finally. Now, I don't have to worry about my immigration woes anymore...Until the next 90 days are up.