Arkansas: Mexican Consulate Sees Growing Demand For Services

[Jean]

Mexican Consulate Sees Growing Demand For Services
Nov 13, 2007
By John Lyon
THE MORNING NEWS
LITTLE ROCK -- Since it opened in April, the Mexican consulate in Little Rock has gone from serving about 50 Mexican nationals daily to serving about 120, Consul Andres Chao said Tuesday.

"We start at 8 (a.m.) and close the consulate around 7, 8 at night. In the future, if the immigrants continue to move to this region, our work and responsibilities are going to be increasing, increasing and increasing," Chao said in a speech at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's International Celebration Day.

Between passports and Mexican national identification cards, the consulate has issued more than 10,000 documents, Chao said. The consulate has a staff of 12 and probably will hire about three more within the next year, he said.

Arkansas has one of the fastest-growing Hispanic populations in the country.

Talking to reporters after his speech, Chao estimated if the demand for services continues to grow, the consulate could one day employ up to 20 workers and serve as many as 300 people daily. The consulate would not have room to grow beyond that point in its current building across from University of Arkanas at Little Rock, he said.

The consulate's jurisdiction covers Arkansas, Mississippi and portions of Oklahoma, Tennessee and Louisiana. In addition to helping Mexican nationals obtain passports and identification cards, the consulate works to protect the legal rights of Mexican immigrants and serves as an economic and cultural liaison between the U.S. and Mexico.

Chao said he did not know whether a new Oklahoma law targeting undocumented immigrants has contributed to a rise in Arkansas' Mexican immigrant population, but he said he is aware some immigrants have left Oklahoma because of the law.

The law, which went into effect Nov. 1, requires law enforcement officers in Oklahoma to check the immigration status of anyone arrested on a felony or drunken driving charge and seeks to bar illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses, public funds, shelter, transportation or employment in the state.

"The community is afraid of the situation," Chao said.

State Rep. Rick Green, R-Van Buren, said Tuesday he did not know why the demand for services at the Mexican consulate has been growing, but he would guess the Oklahoma law is a factor.

"We've been predicting since late summer that Arkansas was going to be a recipient of any illegals that were leaving Oklahoma for fear of the new laws there, that we would become a haven for those people here in Arkansas," he said. "I would venture to guess that some of the influx ... is probably illegal."

Green serves on a legislative committee conducting an interim study on illegal immigration and may propose legislation to address the issue.

"I'm not trying to isolate people or put them into one basket, but the names given out on the news nightly here are in large part Hispanic names that are involved in crimes," Green said. "Some of these may be legal, and I would suspect many of them are not. But I'm not opposed to anybody, Hispanic or otherwise, being here legally."

Chao said he is concerned Arkansas could pass a law similar to Oklahoma's, but he hopes the Legislature will be persuaded by the arguments of the newly formed Arkansas Friendship Coalition, a group of business and church leaders opposed to punitive immigration laws.

"They understand exactly what is the full picture of immigration in Arkansas. They understand that the immigrating people here have a cost but also benefits for the state," Chao said.

www.nwaonline.net

[miguelina]

As long as the Mexican immigrants they are helping are here legally, then that's fine. However, if they are helping Mexicans here illegally, they would be subverting our federal laws, wouldn't you say?

How will the consulate know who is using fake ID or real ID?

[redbadger]

They are a sister city with some mexian City....happened this spring I think....so they are bought and sold ...it was on the internet the mayor signing the agreement