Thread: Mexico plans to re-establish its consulate in New Orleans

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... 76490.html

Mexico plans to re-establish its consulate in New Orleans. The sooner, the better.

Sept. 10, 2006, 7:15PM
Beachhead
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

FOUR years ago, Mexico closed its New Orleans consulate — essentially, for lack of interest. The Mexican government was pinching pennies, and closing the mission signaled a new focus on U.S. cities with significant numbers of Mexican nationals.

New Orleans now counts as one of those cities. That's why Carlos Gonzalez Magallon, Mexico's consul general in Houston, has launched plans to reopen a Crescent City mission — he hopes by Dec. 1. Gonzalez is right to act quickly.

A Louisiana-based consulate would help the Mexicans flowing into New Orleans to work and help the city inch toward normalcy. The re-opening even would revive a bit of history.

A new study by Tulane University and the University of California shows that nearly half of the city's new construction workers are Latino, and about a quarter of that new work force is undocumented. Mexicans make up 47 percent of the undocumented workers. Researchers think that at least 14,000 Latinos now live in New Orleans — double their presence pre-Katrina and about 8 percent of the current population.

Soon after New Orleans' rebuilding began, Mayor C. Ray Nagin made one of his habitual blunders, worrying aloud that New Orleans would be "overrun" with Mexicans. He hastily changed that sentiment during his re-election campaign, praising Latinos instead for their work ethic. But while Latinos are indeed rebuilding New Orleans with exceptional energy, they are often treated atrociously.

Wage theft by employers is epidemic. The Southern Poverty Law Center has overseen two group lawsuits by immigrants who were robbed of pay; Catholic Charities alone fielded thousands of wage theft complaints in less than a year.

A consulate could offer limited but important protections for undocumented Mexicans. Consul General Gonzalez of Houston says his priority will be directing exploited workers to government and nonprofit agencies that redress workplace abuses.

The New Orleans consulate can also offer "matriculas," or Mexican identification cards, which workers can use to open bank accounts, cash payroll checks, even obtain medical care. And a consulate can register children born to nationals in the United States and speed the transport of nationals' bodies home when they die.

A New Orleans mission will also benefit Americans. Mexican officials in Louisiana can pass on information about suspected crimes such as human trafficking and can smooth major U.S.-Mexico business deals.

New Orleans is hardly unfamiliar turf to Mexican diplomats. Mexico opened its first consulate there 180 years ago. Re-establishing that official presence now would revive a bit of the tradition and order that New Orleans so craves. Most important, it would nudge New Orleans officials to ready their own institutions for the city's new, Latino-tinged identity.

If what's happened everywhere else happens here.........New Orleans will be nothing but a memory.