A full house as an official borough building becomes a “mobile consulate” for the first time. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Cesar Martinez, who came to the US two years ago, needed a passport from his native Mexico to help get the driver’s license he needs for his job as a landscaper.
Feben Tecalero a former Red Bank resident now living in Belford, was hoping to renew her passport without having to make a trip to the consulate in New York.
And Karina Espana, who was brought to the United States 24 years ago at age six, came for a passport partly because of the political uncertainty over the program that allows her to live and work in the US legally.
“I don’t really think about it much,’’ said Espana, whose has legal status under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “But every four years when there’s an election, that’s when I get worried.”
Tecalero and the others were among the scores of people who came to the Red Bank Senior Center Saturday for a “mobile consulate” program of the Consulate of Mexico.
(Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
The mobile consulate program provides Mexican citizens living the US assistance in obtaining birth certificates, passports, government ID cards and other services. The Consulate of Mexico operates permanent offices in New York City and New Brunswick.
An estimated 3,000 Red Bank residents, roughly one quarter of the town’s population, were born outside the US. Fifty four percent of the foreign born are from Mexico, according to census data in the borough’s 2023 master plan.
The senior center event marked the first time the mobile consulate program, long periodically held at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, was held at a borough-owned facility.
“Myself and others truly felt that government business should take place in a proper municipal building,” said Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano
Triggiano said all appointments were booked in advance of Saturday’s program. Throughout the day, a steady flow of people filled the building waiting for their appointments.
The Parker Family Health Center, The Mental Health Association of Monmouth County and an RWJ Barnabas nutritionist provided health screenings while a pro bono immigration attorney offered consultations.
“This is something to be extremely proud of,’’ Triggiano added. “This is a really big deal. I can’t stress that enough.”
A big deal indeed, especially for Mexican immigrants who live in the uncertain and often byzantine reality created by an immigration system that hasn’t been updated or reformed since Ronald Reagan was president.
For many immigrants, a passport from their own country is the only official ID they can obtain, crucial for everything from getting a drivers license to opening bank accounts, to applying for immigration benefits or citizenship, said Edith Azcatl Ortiz, a Red Bank resident and paralegal with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-founded immigrant advocacy agency.
“It’s really difficult when someone who just entered the United States doesn’t have any type of ID, doesn’t have any type of paperwork or doesn’t even know how to start with the immigration process,” she said. “Some of them just let go of the process because they are so afraid: what if I get deported?”
Depending on their circumstances, she said she sometimes encourages people applying for permanent residency to go back to Mexico and re-enter the US as a way of establishing a record of legal entry. That creates track record they can point to as evidence for when they make their case before immigration judges and case managers with US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
She did just that herself as she worked her way from DACA recipient to green card holder, returning to her family’s home state of Puebla and returning to Red Bank.
“I was so frightened I might just end up staying there,” she said.
For her it was worth it. She is now a legal permanent resident looking forward to someday obtaining US citizenship. Besides moving around the room helping others navigate the paperwork Saturday, she was also applying herself to renew her Mexican passport, which remains the only document she has access to allowing her to travel overseas.
“This is so important for us – including myself,” she said.
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