From May 10-13, the Mexican Consulate of Chicago set up a mobile office in Warsaw, helping people from Mexico get passports and identification cards.

More than 750 people were issued passports and Mexican Consulate identification cards, also known as matricula consular, at the mobile site set up at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The identification cards are legal documents that show proof of identity.

Locally, the Mexican Consulate worked with Sus Amigos, a Warsaw group that has a goal growing "healthy Hispanic relationships in Kosciusko County by bridging cultural gaps," said Randy Hall of Cardinal Center.

According to Hall, Sus Amigos knew the mobile Mexican consulate visited Fort Wayne, South Bend and Goshen and thought that there was a need for a visit to Kosciusko County because of its large Hispanic population.

Matricula consular are available to any Mexican citizen living outside of Mexico, but in order to get the card applicants must apply in person. Applicants must present a Mexican birth certificate plus a photo ID issued by the Mexican government, such as a voter registration card, military service card or an expired matricula consular. They also must show proof of their address in the United States with a utility bill or other similar document.

If a person does not have the necessary documents, then the Mexican consulate must perform a background check.

While the consulate was set up at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, officers from the Warsaw Police Department were hired.

"(The Mexican consulate) hired police officers to help with the volume of people expected to show up there," said Warsaw Police Chief Steve Foster.

When applying for a new matricula consular, people must present their old card. If the card is lost, a criminal history check is required before the card can be reissued. While Warsaw police officers were at the event, they helped people who lost their Mexican consulate identification cards file incident reports to verify the loss.

"If an ID card is misplaced, (a person) has to file a police report so the consulate has a case number to put on it," Foster said. "It's much like what a person has to do if a license plate or driver's license is stolen."

The cards, which cost around $29 and are good for five years, help Mexican immigrants open bank accounts. The cards can not be used to drive a car.

However, the cards are not without controversy. Since the cards are issued without regard to immigration status and contain no immigration information, many illegal and undocumented aliens use them.

Opponents of the cards say proper documentation is not always required by the consulate, allowing illegal aliens to get cards in several different names.

They also say that if a person of Mexican descent is living legally in the United States, they already would have a valid passport, a valid U.S. visa and a U.S.-issued green card, making the matricula consular unnecessary.

Opponents of the cards say the cards are not secure documents because Mexico does not authenticate the documents used to get them. The cards, opponents say, are easily counterfeited despite security features added in recent years. [[In-content Ad]]