6 DAYS IN A MEXICAN PRISON - SCARY TOURIST EXPERIENCE (and my analysis)

6 DAYS IN A MEXICAN PRISON - SCARY TOURIST EXPERIENCE (and my analysis)

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- Recently on the channel, I've been talking to you about some changes in Mexico's immigration policy, and a subscriber recently sent me this Instagram video of a guy who was imprisoned in Mexico for having an expired tourist visa. So in today's video, I wanted to play that for you, so you can see a firsthand experience from the person this happened to. And I also wanted to give you a little bit of my input on what he's saying in this video.

So with that, let's get started. - Hey guys. Julian Pennant here. Hope you're all good. Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been posting lately. And this is because I was imprisoned in the Cancun immigration center the past six days, in prison in Mexico.

And today I wanna share this story, or my story, to help people in the same situation or to save you to get in the same situation as me and make people aware of this (beep) corrupt system that is going down right now in Mexico, especially in Cancun and Quintana Roo. So what happened to me is. - So he mentioned corruption here with immigration. And Maddie and I have personally experienced corruption at Cancun immigration.

When Maddie was going there to renew her residency visa, the process is supposed to take a few days, but they basically said, "If you don't pay us a $1,200 fee to expedite it," AKA a bribe of $1,200, "well, then it may take months. But if you pay us the bribe, well, then it'll be done in a few days." Well, we did not pay that $1,200 bribe and the renewal took a year, a freaking year, when it's supposed to only take a few days. So see what else he says here.

- Before you travel to countries, any country, you have to go on the embassy website and check out how many days can I stay without a visa. And for German citizens like me, it's 180 days, so. - Yeah, so like he said, when you're traveling somewhere, you have to see if you need a visa to go there and how long you can stay visa-free, if you don't need a visa. And most passports can come to Mexico visa-free.

And any of the tier one passports, like Germany, US, Canada, and there's a number of others as well, well, then those get 180 days in Mexico. And recently, the Mexico immigration policies have changed. And to the extent of my knowledge, the laws haven't changed, just their internal policies. - So when you enter the country, they're gonna give you a stamp, tell you like, "Yeah, 180 days," (speaking in Spanish) Welcome to Mexico and from there on you can travel, so - Yeah. Just like he says, you fill out this form, it's called an FMM. And basically it has your name, where you're staying, things like that.

What airline you flew in on. And they give you an entry stamp, and then they write the number of days you're allowed to stay in a box down at the bottom of that form. And in the past, for many, many years, they've always written 180 days. Everyone gets 180 days coming into Mexico. But that has changed recently.

- What they do since November is they give, on purpose, tourists less days than they need to imprison them to make money off of them. - Okay, now on this, I don't really follow that because yes, they are giving a lot of tourists fewer days than they want, but I don't think it's to try to send them to prison or anything like that to make money off them. That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't even know how Mexico would make money. Maybe he clarifies later in the video. But yeah, lots of people are getting only seven days, a couple weeks.

So I've even heard of one case where they got two days. - How I know that? Because I'm one of those guys. So I entered Mexico and got granted 26 days without knowing it, nobody ever told me, until the day I was taking the (beep) bus from Tulum to Playa Del Carmen. - Yeah, so he got 26 days. And so on the bottom of his FMM form, it would've said 26 there.

So he's taken the bus from Tulum to Playa Del Carmen. - And heavily armed officers stopped the bus, took all the tourists out, and checked our visas and names, and told me my visa was expired. I was like, "Okay, how can it be expired? I'm in Mexico since 90 days. I'm supposed to have 180 days." They'd be like, "No, you have 26 days."

- Yeah, so this has been happening more and more over the past couple of years where they're stopping tourists. And they especially like to stop tourist buses. For some reason, they really target buses, especially state-to-state travel or like interstate travel. In this case, he was staying in Quintana Roo, so he wasn't leaving the state, but he was on the bus going from Tulum to Playa Del Carmen, which is a pretty common place to get stopped by immigration. - I was like, "That doesn't make any sense. Can I do something about it? Can we like, can I pay something? Can we go to the immigration center and just, you know, fix the problem?" And they'd be like, "No, you have to get into this bus, give us your phone, and you're gonna go to prison for it."

I'm like, "What the (beep)? Like, I'm a tourist. I'm paying money in your country, and I'm traveling, and whatsoever." So what happened to me is me and some other people, we were driven to Playa Del Carmen, to the immigration center, where they told us what is gonna happen to us next. So when we got there, we gave them all our belongings, and they took our information. Like how long are you in Mexico? Why are you here? What are you doing? Whatsoever.

And I also asked them, "What is happening now?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, you go to Cancun right now. You're gonna go to prison. But don't worry, it's gonna just be for one day. You stay there for one day, and then you probably can just like go to Colombia or Belize or wherever, extend your visa, and come home back to Mexico." - So for quite a few years, a lot of people have been going out of the country and then coming right back when their visa's about to expire. So that's what he's saying here, that he'll be able to do once he gets out of prison.

But yeah, that not a good situation. - Okay, like, I don't wanna go to (beep) prison in Mexico. I guess nobody wants to do that, but it is what it is. One day is one day, so (beep). So they took us to prison.

And when I got to prison, I realized it was actually prison. It was an actual prison in Mexico. - I'm actually quite surprised to hear that it was an actual prison because I've heard one other personal story. It was this YouTube video that I saw like six years ago. And it was this Australian who had been living in Mexico for a couple of years, and he didn't even realize that he had to renew his tourist visa or anything like that. And one day he's on a bus, and the bus gets stopped by immigration, and his visa was well expired.

Expired by like 18 months or something. And he was taken to some type of holding facility, but based on the way he described it, it didn't sound that bad. And he was there for a day or two. He was Australian.

Then they booked him a ticket, along with two immigration officers, back to Australia. So him and the two officers flew all the way to Australia. Then the two officers flew back to Mexico, all funded by the Mexican government. And yeah, it didn't seem like that bad of a process, except for when he got stopped by immigration, he wasn't allowed to take anything with him except for what he had on him. So I think he had a backpack on him on the bus, but wasn't able to go back and like get his pet or anything like that. But thankfully his girlfriend was living there and she was able to take care of that.

But anyway, that's the one other story I've heard about someone getting stopped like this. And that Australian guy, he wasn't allowed to enter Mexico again for six months. - Took all my shit from me. They took my phone, they took my ID, my passport, my belongings, everything, and put me into a cell with 20 other people. Like, a 10 square meter cell with concrete beds and no privacy, toilets. - So 20 people in a 10 square meter cell.

So I think that's about 100 square feet. - No real functioning showers. Leaking toilets will stink like piss and shit the whole (beep) day. - Gross.

- And half of the day they were just basically locking us up. So on the first day, I was like talking to an official, and I'm like, "Yo, what is happening? What the (beep), you know?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, the fastest process for you is gonna take at least two to three weeks. You're gonna be in prison for two to three weeks."

So that's the first time where they lie to me. Like, you're gonna be in prison for one day. Now they're telling me it's gonna be two to three weeks.

And I'm like, start to freak out. Like, because as I said, it's actual prison. - Yeah, I'd be freaking out too. That sounds awful.

Like being in a small cell with a ton of people with no privacy that stinks. Ugh, gross. - In Mexico, can you imagine that? So I'm like, "Okay, so what are my next steps?" We get into the cell. I'm there with some other people. As I said, innocent tourists, innocent people, and immigrants, you know.

We were sharing our cell with a couple of Guatemalan people. We were sharing our cell with a lot of Cuban people that tried to enter the country, to leave their country and to get a better life, whatsoever. But we didn't know why the (beep) we actually were there. And nobody really wanted to tell us.

So I was like, "Okay, can I call somebody?" That's the first thing. They never granted me a call. They were like, "Nope, you can't call nobody. You've got two phone calls a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays." So I could only take one phone call. Nobody knows where I am.

I don't have no shit on me, only the clothes I had on me, and don't know what to do. - Yeah, wow, so you get there and you can't even make a phone call to let anyone know, and then you get two phone calls a week. Like, if I was there, I don't know anyone's number by memory.

Maybe I should. But geez. - I never was in prison before, especially not in a country like Mexico. So they didn't grant me the phone. I saw people getting no food.

I saw people not getting beds. You know, we got those shitty mattresses and shit. We got lied to every (beep) day. They'd be like, "Yeah, you can come out tomorrow." Next day they'd be like, "I don't know what you're talking about.

You're not gonna get out." We didn't get any information. They were treating as like rubbish. We got three meals a day.

They were tiny as (beep). Old food, shit food, whatsoever. Like, as I said, you can imagine how prison in Mexico might be, and it's exactly how it was. So after two days, I got ahold of my embassy, the German Embassy. Therefore, thank you very much to the German Embassy for solving this problem for me so fast because when I came there, I started talking to people, a lot of Americans in there, a lot of, a couple of Europeans, and I'm like, "How long are you here?" Some of them were there for (beep) six months, two weeks, three weeks, one month, two months, one year, and didn't know how the process was working. How do I get out? Who do I talk to? Who's gonna help me out of here? And nobody of those officials in Mexico gave a shit about you.

- Wow, that's crazy how long some of those people were there. Up to a year for like overstaying a visa. That's insane. Like, I get that they need to enforce their immigration policies and that they don't want people overstaying their visas, but I would think if you're going to send them to jail or prison, well, then you'd be trying to process them out of there as fast as possible. So maybe there is some type of financial motivation, like he was saying earlier, like that they're making money off these people. Maybe he'll say something more about that.

- Because they make money off you. So what I want to tell you right now is I don't wanna brag about through what hell I had to go to, and my friends that I made in prison had to go through, and my friends that are still in there and don't know when they're gonna get out have to go through, and their families have to go through because nobody gives them information. Nobody grants them a call. Nobody grants them anything to know actually how do we get out of here in a country I've never been before, you know? So I found out that they granted every tourist different days of visas since the 1st of November. - Yeah, so I heard about this starting around November as well.

So that makes sense. And yeah, there seems to be no real rhyme or reason as to determining how many days you're going to get. And everybody's getting a different amount, especially those who are flying into Cancun or Mexico City. A lot of people flying into other airports, like Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puerto Vallarta, a lot of those people are getting the full 180 days, but Cancun and Mexico City seem to be the strictest. - Another friend of mine, an American who was imprisoned the same day as me, he wanted to travel through Mexico for a month with his wife, and he got granted seven days without knowing it.

They wouldn't even tell him. They just gave him a stamp, said (speaking in Spanish) welcome to Mexico, and he left. - Yeah, I've never had them tell me how many days they gave me.

They give me a stamp, like, say, "Welcome," say, "You're good to go," and then they just write the number on the paper, but they don't tell you what it means. You just kind of have to know or be reading the document carefully. - And while he was touring around through Mexico, officials just (beep) grabbed him, and were like, "Yo, show me your visa," and took him to prison. And that's how they do it every day. They (beep) stop tourist buses, take all the tourists out, and take all of them to prison, and make money off them because every time a tourist gets in there, they get money.

And for every day you stay in prison, they get even more money. So it's in their interest to keep you in there as long as possible. That's why they don't give you any information. - So I don't know how the Mexican government would make money from keeping you in prison, unless like you have to pay a fee for every day that you're in there in order to get out.

However, maybe there's something to this. Maybe it's the holding facility or the prison that's getting by the Mexican government, or like they're allocated more money based on the number of people they're holding in there, and the guards or whatever are splitting up that money. And they want to keep them in there as long as possible.

Maybe there's something to that, but yeah, I don't see how the Mexican government is making money off of holding tourists in there. And these are tourists who would be out spending their own money that they earned in their home country in Mexico, like supporting the local economy and stuff like that. So financially, as for the country, it doesn't make sense, but it might if it's like the individuals working at that facility. - That's why they don't let you talk to a lawyer. That's why they don't let you talk to an embassy.

So I was lucky that I got ahold of my embassy because somebody in prison smuggled a phone inside, and I could text my mom to get in touch with my embassy. And my embassy started acting really (beep) fast. - Wow. So like, he was only able to contact his mom and the embassy because someone smuggled a phone in there. So like, that's lucky on his part.

And how long could he have been in there if that person didn't have that phone in there? That's kind of scary to think about. Because like, I'm thinking about me like, being on vacation in like Playa Del Carmen, and I get stopped with an expired tourist visa. And then I'm not allowed to contact anyone, I get taken to this prison in Cancun, and I can't contact anyone, I can't let anyone know. So yeah. Whew. - Thank you for that again. And the next day, or two days later, I got a call from them.

They'd be like, "Yo, we're gonna get you outta there, but it's gonna take a couple days." So today's the day where I got finally out after six days of prison, after six days of (beep) torture, sleeping with (beep) flashlights on, and locking us up, not giving us food, not granting us water for five or six hours in the (beep) burning heat. Not talking to us, lying to us, laughing at us, making fun of us the whole (beep) whole time.

And no, like, I don't even know what to say right now. This is just a shortcut from all I've been through the past six days, which I want to share with you people. And please share this with everybody you know who is in Mexico right now and who's planning to go to Mexico right now.

Check your visas. Don't expire them. Go and try to extend them. If they don't grant you an extension, what they also try to do, they'd be like, "Why do you need an extension? We don't do that. (beep) that. You don't need that.

It's not important in Mexico. You can have an expired visa. Everybody has that. That happens from time to time."

You know? Don't believe them. - For a long time, it was basically okay to have an expired visa, and nothing really was going to happen to you. And like, let's say you were flying out of the Cancun airport and you had an expired visa. Well, then you could just go to the immigration office there, pay like a 500-peso fee for a new one, and then you get a new one, and you're able to fly out. It was never a big deal. But there seems to be a lot of misinformation and like, lack of community within immigration because he's talking about how, like, some immigration people will be like saying, "Yeah, it's fine if you have an expired visa.

Don't worry about it. Just leave and come back." That's been the attitude for a very long time. But like, there's been some more strict standards coming down from immigration in Mexico City. But anyway, we'll see what else he says.

- Go out of the country immediately. Come back, get a new visa, or go out of the country immediately. You're gonna get imprisoned, and you're never gonna know when you get out. I was lucky. I got out after six days. This other guy in there is in the prison since (beep) four months, six months, whatsoever. I hope my friend, my other friend from America, which his embassy is not as powerful or is not working as my embassy, which is (beep) awkward, I hope he gets out today or tomorrow as well.

Or I don't know because I can't get in contact with him. And the only way he can get in contact with his family is twice a week, five minutes on the phone. And sometimes they'd be acting like, "Oh, the phone doesn't work. I'm sorry." Man, if you have somebody who's in the same situation, in prison right now, and you don't know what to do, holler at me, DM me, send me a message.

I hope I can be helpful. I've learned a lot in the past couple days. And this (beep) corrupt system, of course, Mexico. But that's how you treat your tourists? That's how you do them? And then they (beep) deport me back to Germany? Now I'm in Frankfurt. Now I'm going back home. I don't think I'm ever going back to Mexico, honestly, after this (beep), after this torture we went through. - Yeah, I mean, if I went through what this guy went through for having an expired visa when I didn't actually even overstay the 180 days, I don't think I'd want to come back to Mexico either.

Like, this is gonna leave a really sour taste in the mouth of anyone this happens to. And he says he is back in Frankfurt. I'm curious if he was accompanied by immigration officers like that Australian story that I told you about.

But yeah. I mean, if you're in Mexico visiting on a tourist permit, look at that box in the middle. At the very bottom, in the middle of the card, it should have a number written there.

And make sure you don't overstay that. - This is just a shortcut from all the (beep) bullshit that happened in there. Be safe. - Wow, that is intense.

Like, I feel so sorry for this guy and anyone else who's gone through this or is going through this. Like, that is way, way worse than that story I heard from that Australian guy several years back. So like, if you're in Mexico on a tourist's permit, make sure you don't overstay your visa. And even if you have to, if you're in like the Cancun, Playa Del Carmen area, go to Belize and come back in the country if you need to extend it a little more time. Maybe you won't get more than a couple more weeks, but at least that allows you to not be in the country on an expired visa.

Recently, I made another video talking about these Mexico immigration changes right here. So you can click on that until we see you next time. But before you go, please subscribe to the channel and (bell chimes) Gong that bell so you get notified every time we release a new video.

And we will see you on Saturday.

2022-03-04 07:49

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