Mexican Consulate Pays Visit to Redmond

The Mexican Consulate was helping to make things easier for local Mexicans in Central Oregon this weekend.

The Mexican Consulate visited Lynch Elementary in Redmond this weekend.

Staff had appointments with 350 people to provide Mexican passports or consular cards.

You have to have an official I.D. with a photo to do many things, including going to the bank and getting a drivers license — and especially if you’re going to back and forth between the countries.

For those unable to afford the passport, the consulate also helped pass out the consular cards, which are cheaper.

“It’s a gathering,” said Brad Porterfield, executive director of the Latino Community Association. “People are excited because there’s a high demand to have an I.D. card and with our new policies here in the state of Oregon, with drivers license and so forth. For anybody who is not a citizen or permanent resident, this is the only I.D. that they can get, so very important.”

The consulate based in Portland comes once a year to Central Oregon. This was their sixth visit.

Porterfield says having them come here saves families lots of money including gas, time and loss wages for taking time off to go to Portland.