More than 2,000 Mexican citizens have died from COVID-19 in the United States, putting the country’s consulates under control while processing death certificate programs and re-enviating the deceased.
Coronavirus has claimed the lives of at least 2,045 Mexicans in the United States, according to the country’s foreign department, but some officials say the figure can be much higher.
“I wouldn’t exclude more people,” said Martha Burcena, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, who noted that existing figures are compiled through consular death certificate programs.
Of the nearly forty-five million immigrants to the United States, about a quarter are from Mexico and almost part of all immigrants without legal prestige are also from Mexico, according to the knowledge of the Migration Policy Institute. This makes the Mexican diaspora in the United States the largest single-country diaspora in the world.
For many Mexican immigrants, the country’s 50 consulates in the United States are the only source of government, such as issuing identity cards and similar documents.
During the pandemic, these consulates were tasked with providing monetary assistance for the cremation and repatriation of the remains.
“Our concept was mostly to other people in the repatriation of bodies and cremation,” Burcena said. “The consulates have not reached their budget because the costs of funerals have skyrocketed.”
Consulates set a $500 target in funeral assistance for the application, however, those costs vary by region and fit the monetary scenario of the people in mourning.
Of the more than 2,000 deaths, 764 in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
At the height of the pandemic in New York, the Mexican consular government hastened, along with the government, to obtain a count and death certificate for families.
This procedure runs through the city’s labyrinth of makeshift morgues, hoping to identify Mexican victims.
“New York in a time of crisis,” Burcena said. “They couldn’t move the documents and they didn’t know where the bodies were.”
Once the bodies were identified, a Mexican Air Force cargo plane was sent to New York in July to repatriate the remains of 245 Mexican citizens.
Consulates, however, to catch up.
The Chicago consulate, one of the largest, added more changes, while others were forced to close due to local coronavirus guidelines. When it reopened, many of these consulates had to deal with an accumulation of other consular services, such as passport renewal.
But even regimen requests in a different way have temporarily become urgent questions, due to coronavirus. For non-legal Mexican immigrants who pay U.S. taxes using an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN), their only form of official identity is a Mexican passport.
When the IRS replaced the tax filing date from April 15 to July 15, ITIN holders with passports that expire during that three-month era discovered that their local consulates were closed, creating a reopening bottleneck.
To help ease this tension, the Mexican Embassy has worked with national Hispanic organizations such as UnidosUS, the United Latin American Citizens League, and the National Association of Elected Officials of Latin America to succeed in COVID-19 patients who have not yet communicated with a consulate. .
Awareness has focused on the spaces where Mexicans are known to paint disproportionately in the meat packaging and agriculture industries, a painting that has been fundamental to the contagion of coronavirus.
“It hasn’t been easy to comply as we would like because of COVID’s restrictions,” Burcena said. “It’s also not easy to access [packaging] factories.”
Consulates have combined reports with outbreaks of epidemics: prisons, prisons, and immigrant detention centers.
He said he was in close contact with Matthew Albence, acting director of immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who announced his retirement last month.
These conversations “were not easy, but there is an opening to talk, which is important,” Burcena said.
ICE said that as of Monday, 22,580 inmates had been screened, leading to 1,084 cases.
The firm says 4 of the 4,444 inmates have died and tested positive since the start of the pandemic.
But many reports have shown that evidence and remedies in detention centres are inadequate, and that inflamed detainees are often quarantined in solitary confinement.
Mexican diplomats have had other reports with ICE offices across the country, mainly on private relations between agents and consular officials at a given location.
He said the top Mexican officials were temporarily informed of the location and situation of the detainees.
“There is close dating in terms of communication and data exchange on sufficiently good [health] measures,” Burcena said.
“It doesn’t paint 100%, it depends a lot on the personality of ICE consuls and officials in each region,” he added.
A positive aspect for foreigners, coupled with those who do not have legal status, was the willingness of the country’s local government to provide loose COVID-19 evidence.
Congressional-approved coronavirus aid packages in the spring made those immigrants eligible for federal Medicaid or loose trials and treatments.
But the Mexican consular network found that the maximum centers were lazy, regardless of their citizenship status.
“The fact we’ve gotten from almost every consulate is that the evidence is loose almost everywhere, although the remedy isn’t,” Burcena said.
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