Several years ago, on one of our frequent trips to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (we own a time share there), my wife and I watched a little Immigration drama unfold.
That story seems a little more in vogue, now that the Mexican Presidente has crapped all over Arizona's plan to control IT'S borders, so I will relate it.
We had just landed at the PV airport on a Saturday afternoon, and deplaned into the shuttle bus, which had taken us into the terminal. Our first stop in the terminal is Mexican Immigration. The 200 or so passengers were formed into about 4 lines, and our line appeared to be 100% US tourists. Right in front of us was a 40-ish guy, with a good tan, and a very light carry-on bag. He seemed to be a frequent visitor.
Handling our line of tourists just happened to be the Capitan of the Watch for the Immigracion. He was a serious-looking guy in his early forties, it seemed. We all had our passports in hand, as required by signs posted prominently.
When the tanned tourist got up to the Capitan, it seemed that the officer studied the passport intently, flipping though all it's pages for several minutes. This is unusual, since they usually just look at the identity page and maybe the page with the most recent stamp on it. The Capitan intoned, "Senor, it seems that your passport has expired." The tourist replied casually, "Yes, but I have applied for a new one." The Capitan just stared at the tourist, obviously a well-traveled man, and then said, "Senor, you cannot enter Mexico on an expired passport, and this one is expired." Like all cops about to make an arrest, the Capitan then pulled out a notebook, and copied some information out of the tourist's passport, then put his notebook away with a flourish. He pulled out a form from his desk drawer, and wrote some information on it, then folded it and put it inside the tourist's passport and said, "Senor, on Monday, you will come, with your Mexican Immigracion attorney, to the Federal Customs building downtown at nine o'clock. You will bring letters of credit enabling you to pay a very large fine." With that, the Capitan dismissed the now-distressed tourist, and gave us his best smile, "Passports, Senor and Senora?"
A true story, it happened in February '06.