Re: Crossing US border with someone else's car

Posted by Jon on August 19, 2009, 12:22 pm, in reply to "Re: Crossing US border with someone else's car"
187.146.84.98

Are you sufficiently confused yet? From what I gather, this is a US-state-plated vehicle with a Mexican importation sticker on the windshield. The new rules say that you must surrender the Mexican sticker each and every time you exit Mexico. You need no ID to do this. When you get to the border, US customs/immigration will check your US passport, but nothing to do with the car. So you are in the US no problem. We have heard a couple of horror stories when trying to return to Mexico from people who didn't surrender the Mexican auto importation permit. Both of them were crossing at Laredo and both got out of it with large mordidas. We drove into Arizona last March without doing anything. Since we were returning through Nogales, which is a free zone all the way past San Carlos, they didn't even check our visas or passports and even though we declared purchases over the limit, they said, "That's not so much over the limit, pásele." So, to be safe, give up the Mexican sticker on the way out and get a new one for about $125 pesos on the way back in WITH THE OWNER. As far as copies are concerned, you can have them made by Mexican immigration on the spot. US immigration doesn't care about who owns the car if it has US-state plates. If it has Mexican plates, ignore everything I've said, since I don't know what might happen in that case.

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