Thread: New Mexican Consul Faces Immigration, Voting Tasks

http://www.elpasotimes.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 00346/1001

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

New Mexican consul faces immigration, voting tasks

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

The new Mexican consul in El Paso arrives just in time to tackle new challenges such as absentee ballots for next year's Mexican presidential election and rising animosity toward undocumented immigrants.

Juan Carlos Foncerrada Berœmen, 43, of Mexico City arrived in El Paso last week from his previous assignment as consul in Brownsville.

"He is sensitive to border issues," said the alternate consul, Victor Manuel Trevino Escardero.

At a news conference Monday, Foncerrada said he approaches his assignment with "enormous enthusiasm."

"I will work to maintain a smart border, a functional border, where people can enjoy quality of life," he said.

Foncerrada, who was appointed by Mexican President Vicente Fox, has an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in business administration. In his political life, he participated in the creation of a political party, Democracia Social, and sat on commissions in Mexico City.

In El Paso, his constituents' most pressing concern is over an incident that allegedly occurred early Saturday on the border between Palomas, Mexico, and Columbus, N.M.

A group of undocumented immigrants said a man with an American accent shot and killed their pollero, or smuggler, on the Mexican side. Chihuahua state police are investigating concerns that vigilantes are operating along the border following the lead of the Minuteman Project in Arizona.

Also on the consul's agenda is a plan by the Mexican Senate to allow Mexican nationals to vote by mail in the 2006 presidential elections.

If approved, it could affect 10,000 people in West Texas and New Mexico. Foncerrada said he visited the Chamizal National Memorial on Sunday and found it inspiring as a remembrance of binational cooperation and as "a place to promote Mexican culture."

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.

"I will work to maintain a smart border, a functional border, where people can enjoy quality of life," he said.

Is anyone down there CHALLENGING THIS GUY with......Smart & functional FOR WHO? Explain this statement in detail, sir!

A coyote was killed? By an American? In Chihuahua? hmmm...funny I haven't heard that news. Did you know that a couple of our Border Patrol have been killed? In America? By Mexicans?

They'll have to prove this one. I smell a RAT...a great big RATO...since almost the first words out of their mouths accused a 'vigilante'...someone like the MinuteMen...

grrrr....snarrrrlllll...


RR

Can someone DELETE this please......the delete isn't coming up for me

RR wrote

Did you know that a couple of our Border Patrol have been killed? In America? By Mexicans?

'NUFF SAID!