After it was reported the sale of appointments in Mexican consulates in the U.S., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) of Mexico presented specific measures in favor of free and professional consular care for Mexicans in the American union.
Thus, the head of the North American Unit, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, accompanied by the Director General of Consular Protection and Strategic Planning, Maki Teramoto Sakamoto, and the Director General of Consular Services, Jaime Vázquez Bracho, presented the progress of the strategy implemented by the consular network in North America to combat corruption, particularly the sale of appointments at consulates.
Velasco noted last week the detection of two people involved in a scheme to sell appointments at the Mexican Consulate in Fresno. In that sense, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has proceeded to an "exemplary sanction" in a case of collusion between an independent professional service provider and a guard, both involved in the illegal scheme.
"They will not return to work in a representation of Mexico abroad," said officials regarding those involved, in addition to analyzing the situation in order to present the corresponding sanctions.
Previously, people and companies were detected selling appointments for the Mexican Consulate in Las Vegas. In this case, Consul Julian Escutia filed a formal complaint against him with state authorities, who issued the corresponding sanctions, they said.
Additionally, Roberto Velasco highlighted the new tender for the appointment management service, which reports a daily attention of more than 25,000 calls, as well as the cancellation of 10 percent of randomly audited appointments, as it was discovered that they were improperly made by managers.
Roberto Velasco emphasized the creation of a blacklist of emails associated with managers who sell appointments at Mexican consulates. To date, 1,624 email accounts have been blocked.
In addition, the consular network proceeded to cancel appointments suspected of having been arranged through agency services.
For his part, General Director Jaime Vázquez Bracho presented the updated figures of attention to Mexican nationals in North America. "Both the number of appointments offered and documents issued are clearly increasing despite the pandemic," he said.
"These days have repeatedly broken records for the issuance of documents, which demonstrates the efficiency of this strategy, as more people are served in less time," he said.
Among the actions taken by the SRE were the implementation of a new centralized service module for the Mexitel web platform, which operates 24 hours a day every day; the identification, cancellation and blocking of e-mail accounts associated with managers; random inspections to verify appointments; and permanent weekly reviews in consulates with the highest demand for service.
In turn, the corresponding authorities also reported progress in the program of close cooperation between the Secretariat and platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter for the detection and blocking of pages that offer illegal dating services.
For her part, Director General Maki Teramoto presented the progress of the various consular protection programs for Mexicans in North America, and also highlighted the permanent attention of the Center for Information and Assistance to Mexicans (CIAM), which provides assistance in cases of protection to about 25,000 Mexicans a month and operates 24/7.
Finally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed its commitment to provide consular services to all Mexicans abroad, in particular to communities in North America, and assured that it would take concrete measures to deal with schemes for the sale of appointments, which are free of charge and which, moreover, constitute a right for all Mexicans, regardless of their immigration status.
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