I have a physical SIM card from canada and an eSim from mexico. iMessage won’t accept the eSim phone number for receive and send. Date is correct, software updated. Turned iMessage and FaceTime off and on. TurnTued phone off and on. What is left?

The carrier has to provision the phone so it can send an sms message to a UK phone, which activates iMessage and FaceTime. Some carriers have international sms disabled, especially budget ones. You would need to check with them.

Normally carriers that are “vetted” by Apple do not have that problem, as they will allow the activation sms to go through regardless of your account.

My experience has been with those that are not “official iPhone carriers always have the iMessage activation problem.