Mexicans get documents
By Lillian Kafka
Men, women and children; mothers, fathers and married couples – all Mexican citizens – received official Mexican documents Saturday at the first Mexican Embassy-sponsored event in Manassas in five years.
About 700 Mexican citizens received passports and consulate ID cards Saturday at the Manassas campus of Northern Virginia Community College.
Manassas is back on the embassy’s map, according to Consul Enrique Escorza, who said the growing number of Mexican citizens in the area justified their hosting a day where Mexicans could access embassy resources which are normally available in the District.
In the wake of the U.S. Senate’s rejection of a bill that would have provided the country a guest worker program and amnesty for millions of undocumented immigrants, now is as important a time as ever for aliens to carry official identification, said Escorza.Esther Ambriz, who lives in Dumfries, said she was applying for a passport to travel from Virginia to Michoacan, Mexico, where she is from.
“If something happened out there, it a lot harder to travel at the last minute [without a passport,” she said.
“A lot of these people don’t have any ID. They have a long time here in the U.S. and they travel. A lot of people need a passport to open an account at the bank,” Ambriz said.
And opening a bank account is crucial for Hispanic workers, who could be targeted if they carry large amounts of cash, Escorza said.
“Instead of me having all the cash that I made this month in my pockets,” he said, having an ID card helps to open a bank account.