Thread: Mexican diplomat prepares for Arkansas assignment

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Mexican diplomat prepares for Arkansas assignment


By DANIEL CONNOLLY
Monday, June 19, 2006 3:49 PM CDT

LITTLE ROCK - Andres Chao's career with the Mexican government has taken him to a post in the Netherlands and his current job as a press officer in the nation's New York consulate. But now he's taking on a new assignment _ consul in Little Rock.

Chao, 41, said in a telephone interview Monday that he plans to move to Little Rock with his wife and three children in July to start the renovation of a building near the University of Arkansas at Little Rock that will house the consulate. The renovation should take about two months.

"And at that point we're going to be able to open," he said. The opening date could be in September, but it's uncertain _ the government is still negotiating lease terms with the building owner.

Chao said he earned a master's degree in communications at a Mexican university and has worked for the Mexican government all of his professional life, mostly in communications with the news media. Before coming to New York nearly two years ago, he was working for President Vicente Fox's government in Mexico, he said.

The Mexican government announced in 2004 that it planned to open a Little Rock consulate. The consulate has the support of officials including Gov. Mike Huckabee, who traveled to Mexico in 2003 to meet officials there and has said a consulate would be a boon to Arkansas companies doing business in Mexico.

Little Rock was chosen not because of its own population of Mexican immigrants, but because it's a central location to serve immigrants from Oklahoma, Tennessee, and other states, consular officials have said.

Today, Mexican immigrants in Arkansas have to travel to offices as far away as Dallas for consular services or wait for temporary events known as "mobile consulates."

Chao said one of the most important services offered by the consulate will be the issuance of passports and consular identification cards.

Critics argue that the identification card issued by Mexican consulates in the United States, the Matricula Consular, helps illegal immigrants legitimize their status here. But Chao rejected that argument.

"It's nothing to do with the different document that the American authorities have over here," he said. "It's just the consulate gives an ID card that this guy is a Mexican guy and lives in this address. That's all."

Nationwide, some banks, mortgage companies and even some government bodies accept the Matricula Consular as a form of identification.

Chao says the Mexican government can't control how banks and other institutions use the identification card.

"That decision is not for the Mexican consulate. That decision is for the banks," he said.

The consulate will have a staff of roughly 10 and also will offer other services, including helping Mexicans in trouble with local authorities.

I heard somewhere that there were already 44 Mexican consults in the United States. One of our Representatives should do a bill limiting the number on consults Mexico can have in the United States. I'd say about 12 sound right! Why does our government allow so many, anyone know?