Alejandrina Gallego, left, assists Elsa Jacobs with travel documentation.

Greg Bryan / arizona daily star

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Mexico once again has rolled out the welcome mat for paisanos — the hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants who live in the United States and head south for the holidays each year.

Through the Paisano Program, Mexico each December works to ease the journey for travelers by expediting the issuance of travel documents.

Some travelers try to speed up the process and avoid long lines in Mexico even more by obtaining travel documents before they leave.

Tucson resident Maria Martinez, 30, went to the Tucson Mexican Consulate on Tuesday to get a necessary vehicle permit for her trip to Ciudad Obregón, Sonora. She left without one because the Tucson consulate is not among those offering the service in the United States.

She plans to stop at a checkpoint south of the border to get her vehicle permit, she said, adding that she and other relatives will leave for her hometown Friday and return Tuesday.

"We celebrate Christmas with our family there every year," she said.

In Nogales, Sonora, which is about 60 miles south of Tucson, the Mexican government boosts personnel to handle the large influx of people applying for vehicle permits and other travel documents.

José Felix, who oversees the Nogales division that issues vehicle permits at a checkpoint about 13 miles south of the international line, said the number of people stopping in for the document appears to be down from last year.

Paisanos hoping to avoid crowded checkpoints may be obtaining vehicle permits online and from select Mexican consulates in the United States, he said.

César Moreno of Banjercito, the government agency in Mexico City that tracks the influx of vehicles temporarily imported into the country, confirmed that expatriates this year are getting their permits via the year-old Internet service and the consulates.

The number of Mexican expatriates visiting Mexico over the holiday season is expected to be about 750,000, roughly the same as last year, Moreno said.

Even though vehicle permits are not available at the Mexican Consulate in Tucson, spokesman Alejandro Ramos said travel documents for Mexicans and tourists — such as Mexican passports and tourist visas — generally are in high demand this time of year.

For its part, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are working with their Mexican counterparts to ease northbound travel for paisanos and others after the holidays, said agency spokesman Brian Levin.

Paisanos' return trek means longer waits at the border in early January.

Customs officials in Arizona will be prepared to process the additional traffic by keeping the lanes open longer at Mariposa, its second port of entry for cars and commercial trucks in Nogales, Levin said. The downtown DeConcini Port of Entry is open 24 hours.

Elsa Jacobs and her husband, Lee, were at the Mexican Consulate on Tuesday to obtain travel documents. In the past, they've been caught up in the traffic crunch that follows Christmas and New Year's Day in Nogales.

This year, the couple and their two children, Michael, 5, and Victor, 3, will spend two weeks with her relatives in Cancún. They won't spend any time waiting in long vehicle lanes at the border.

That's because this year they're flying.