May 23, 2007
Mexico Opens More U.S. Consulates as Fight Rages
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary about a certain government office in Little Rock, Ark., the other day as paperwork was signed, names were called, fees were paid, waits were endured and computer keyboards went tap, tap, tap.

Just the workaday humdrum of official government business — the government of Mexico, that is, in yet another new consulate, the country’s 47th in the United States.

Mexico’s consulates function as a safety net of sorts, issuing passports and identification cards that facilitate banking and offering assistance when Mexican immigrants, an estimated 11 million, run into trouble.

Increasingly, they are also acting as influential free agents in a broken immigration system that Congress is trying to overhaul. As the consulate that opened last month in Little Rock illustrates, the Mexican government is following its citizens far from the border into the growing quarters of Latino migration, much of it illegal.

Since 2000, consulates have opened in places where immigration from Mexico has soared, including St. Paul; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Omaha and Raleigh, N.C.

“They have every right to open one up,â€