Mobile consulate aids Mexican citizens in Illinois with documentation

Published: 2006-06-05

JOLIET, Ill. (CNS) -- More than 1,000 Mexicans who live in and around two northern Illinois counties lined up over three days to renew their passports and obtain government identification cards, without leaving the state. A mobile unit of the Mexican consulate was set up May 25-28 at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, where it was met by lines of people, some of whom waited hours for service. University of St. Francis foreign language professor Ingrid Goobar-Szleifer, a member of the Hispanic Latino Coalition of Will and Grundy Counties, coordinated the effort. She told the Catholic Explorer, newspaper of the Joliet Diocese, that the university's willingness to host the mobile consulate grew out of the school's mission of outreach and charity as well as the Catholic Church's support for the rights of immigrants. Substantial lines of people formed outside the university's Moser Performing Arts Center several hours before the consulate teams arrived each morning, said Goobar-Szleifer. The second annual mobile consulate visit was so popular, she said, because "without documentation you are no one here."

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