If something has been difficult lately, it’s to set foot in a Brazilian Mexico, although there are no barriers, just the need to obtain electronic permission from a Mexican government website. The problem is that the system, for Brazilians, has been failing for about a month. The situation has reached the point of tourists abandoning their scheduled trips.
Since December, electronic permission to enter Mexico has been requested from Brazilian travelers, as well as from other countries. Confirmation must be obtained within 30 days prior to departure and, in the absence of one, the Mexican visa can be attempted via a face-to-face interview. “Here in Sao Paulo, they open the visa agenda in the third week of the month,” says engineer Paulo Blanco, 47. With a flight scheduled for July 9, he’s spent the past few weeks trying to get permission for one of his children. Nothing is done. He ran after an appointment at the consulate and faced a lack of time. “We’re not going anymore,” he says.
The engineer entered the Mexican government’s website to obtain the travel permit within the required time frame, 30 days prior to departure. When he saw that the system was not working, he went to social media and discovered that he was not alone.
The Mexican visa and electronic authorization are waived if the traveler has a valid visa to enter the United States. The same applies to persons authorized to enter Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom or the Schengen area, which is made up of 22 of the 28 member states of the European Union. Blanco, his wife and daughter have a US visa. The son has expired.
In social networks, there are complaints that “people are not respected, dreams are thrown into the trash and money too”; I have been trying for days without stopping. I will lose everything. My little daughter is crying because we dream so much about this trip in the shadow of the pandemic.”
Blanco still has another common denominator with other Brazilians. Anyone who enters the site and changes their nationality to any other person is in for a surprise. “There, it works! It’s a surreal situation.”
On the agency’s website, there is a statement informing those who are still interested in maintaining the flight that “the Consulate has no participation in this process” and “has no control over the electronic authorization system and assumes no responsibility for the loss of ticket reservations… by plane, hotels or any damages.” other”. Estadão contacted the Mexican embassy and received no response.
Information from O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.
