Enrique Mendez
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, October 20, 2022, p. 16
The United States embassy in Mexico informed the Foreign Relations Commission of the Chamber of Deputies that there is no mechanism that allows returning to the average wait of 15 days to obtain an appointment to process a visa.
In a private meeting with legislators, Herminia Ellerbrock, from the embassy’s Political Affairs office, pointed out that they are working on hiring staff and increasing hours, but the pandemic caused a significant delay and, therefore, the wait for obtaining an appointment for a tourist visa will be maintained in two years.
Legislators from different fractions even proposed considering courtesy, humanitarian, transit or emergency visas, to which the embassy official specified that the latter can be processed by anyone, through the page of the diplomatic representation, which prove a legitimate urgency.
It is not the same that a person wants to go do some emergency shopping as if a relative had died
he told the deputies, and assured that 200 such visas are approved every day. There is a team that reviews the application, although not all qualify
.
He noted that there is no transit pass. Any person who needs to be, even two hours in the United States on a stopover to another country, requires a valid visa.
Maximiano Barboza (Morena) proposed a scheme of courtesy quotes
to speed up the process when it comes to humble people. Her bench partner Alberto Villa Villegas mentioned the case of a widow in Mexico, creditor of a pension from her deceased husband in the United States, but who was denied a visa and she cannot receive the resource.
