Home of Today's Common Sense

Submitted 4/1/2004 Published Brownsville Herald
I have some serious issues relating to the impact of the World Court Decision concerning the adjudged violations of consular notification when a foreign national is arrested described in the lead article in the April 1, Herald.
What really concerns me is that we are beginning a process where we will be revising our immigration policies that will result in a substantial number of temporary worker/residents where this consular notification will indeed become serious.
In looking at the issue we must focus on the specifics and ignore the legalities of jurisdiction, procedures and time frames of filing memorandums and such.
The issue in this case, is that a number of individuals were arrested and convicted of a variety of serious crimes. The government of Mexico claims that they were citizens of Mexico and that sufficient information was available to determine that these individuals were citizens of Mexico. Because of the fact of nationality the nearest consul of Mexico should have been notified in a timely manner of the fact of the detention.

Certainly, when a foreign national is taken into custody while traveling in a foreign country where there is a consular treaty in force, an important protection is timely notification of the “sending country’s diplomatic consul”.
If the individual is in the U.S. legally and has a passport and visa on his person, I would quickly agree with the assertions Mexico makes. Some of the individuals may have been in the United States without any documentation establishing their nationality, and others may have been permanent residents of the United States with little contact with the “sending” country. Further, I have every expectation that in all cases the individual was informed of the right to an attorney prior to interrogation and afforded one free of charge if resources were not available. So while there may have not been a formal notification of the opportunity to advice the diplomatic counsel, it certainly appears that there was more than ample protection of the individual from unfair persecution.
A last thought is that sometimes it is very unclear what the nationality of a criminal is; they don’t always tell the truth.
Our work force is aging and reducing in numbers, the retiring work force will need more and more services and products; we need the new workers to satisfy these needs! Critical to that is that we also need to have a comprehensive immigration direction, including the impact to effective law enforcement (including resources to comply with the mandates) to deal with situations such as this and other issues.