Following reports of the sale of appointments at Mexican consulates in the U.S., the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) presented specific measures in favor of free and professional consular services for Mexican citizens in the U.S.
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 individuals involved in a scheme to sell appointments at the Mexican Consulate in Fresno. In that regard, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has proceeded with 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 work again in a Mexican representation abroad," the officials specified with respect to those involved, in addition to analyzing the situation in order to present the corresponding sanctions.
Previously, individuals 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 before state authorities, who issued the corresponding sanctions, they said.
In addition, Roberto Velasco highlighted the new bidding process for the appointment management service, which reports a daily attendance 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 e-mails associated with agents 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, Director General Jaime Vázquez Bracho presented updated figures on the care provided to Mexican nationals in North America. "Both the number of appointments offered and documents issued are clearly increasing despite the pandemic," he said.
"Repeatedly, in these days of attention, records have been broken in the issuance of documents, which shows the efficiency of this strategy, since 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; the identification, cancellation and blocking of e-mail accounts associated with managers; random inspections to verify appointments; and permanent weekly reviews at consulates with the highest demand for service.
At the same time, 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 protection cases to nearly 25,000 Mexicans per month and operates 24/7.
Finally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed its commitment to provide consular services to all Mexican nationals abroad, particularly 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 constitute a right for all Mexican nationals, regardless of their immigration status.
You may be interested in: Biden's immigration policy has failed at the border: experts
