Mexican Consulate Vows to Provide Immigrant Protection, Services in Colorado

The Mexican government wants its citizens who’ve immigrated to Colorado to know that their rights will be protected during these uncertain times. Pável Meléndez Cruz, the consul general of Mexico in Denver, delivered that message at a gathering on February 25.

“People have more concerns, and they’re more worried,” Meléndez Cruz said at the Consulate General of Mexico in Denver. “Obviously, fear is hard to measure, it’s not exactly tangible, but we do see the worry in their faces.”

Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that deports immigrants, have been a growing concern in Colorado as President Donald Trump began activating his mass deportation plan known as Operation Aurora. Colorado Democrats have shown their support for immigrants and their dislike of more ICE involvement, even killing a bill that would have reversed the state’s sanctuary laws on February 25. However, the Mexican government is still worried about its citizens in Colorado, and wants them to know that their nearest consulate is here to help.

The Mexican consulate in Denver will be sharing more information on social media about consular services and the rights of Mexican citizens as part of the “Strengthening Community Support and Rights Awareness” campaign, said Meléndez Cruz, who serves Colorado and Wyoming from the Denver consulate, one of 53 Mexican consulates in the United States.

Mexican Citizens in Colorado

According to the U.S. Census American Community Survey, roughly 200,000 Mexican-born immigrants were living in Colorado as of 2023. The consulate doesn’t have an estimate of how many Mexican citizens are living in Colorado, but because Mexican immigrants can hold dual citizenship once they become American citizens, the number wouldn’t reflect how many are fearing deportation, Meléndez Cruz noted.

Generally, consulates are meant for accessing public services while a citizen is out of the country. Often they’re used for issuing passports, but Meléndez Cruz repeated a couple of times that “we do more than issue passports.”

According to Meléndez Cruz, local fears of deportation led to “an exponential increase” of requests for appointments in February to help secure dual citizenship, largely from undocumented parents seeking Mexican passports for their U.S.-born children. If a family has to return to Mexico, that passport can give U.S.-born children access to Mexico’s public benefits such as universal health care, the right to own property, and to attend public schools and universities without international fees or visas. 

Deportation fears have also led to “an obvious decrease in the number of people missing appointments,” Meléndez Cruz added. Before January 30, people were missing about 40 percent of the appointments scheduled at Denver’s Mexican consulate each day.  Now, “because there’s more worry,”  missed appointments have decreased to the point where “there’s almost none,” he said.

Meléndez Cruz reminded Mexican immigrants that officials from Denver’s consulate will visit if they’re detained by ICE. According to the U.S. State Department, when local or federal law enforcement authorities detain a foreign national, including undocumented immigrants, they have to inform them that they have the right to notify their native country’s closest consulate about their arrest.

“We didn’t start doing that on January 20,” Meléndez Cruz said, referring to Trump’s inauguration date. “We’ve always been doing that.”

In fact, Meléndez Cruz stressed that visitations are one of the consulate’s most common services. On average, Mexican consular officials visited the Aurora ICE facility twice a week last year, and it made visitations to more than 200 different Mexican citizens detained there, he said.

As part of its informational campaign, the consulate wants Mexican immigrants to know about a couple of services the Mexican government offers if they do end up returning to Mexico. They can bring or ship their furniture and household objects back to Mexico without having to pay any taxes by getting a Household Goods Import Certificate (known as a “Certificado de Menaje de Casa”). They can also certify job skills they acquired while working in the U.S. through a platform called CONOCER.

While in the U.S., Mexican immigrants can continue to use Mexican social security benefits, including health-care services, disability payments and pensions, by registering with IMSS, the Mexican Social Security Institute.

Quick Tips to Keep in Your Phone

The consulate offers step-by-step guides in Spanish for Mexican immigrants dealing with ICE; these guides are more succinct than the flood of information online and offer a few particularly useful tips, like asking for bail amounts or that a consulate be notified after an arrest. 

The guide’s advice for dealing with ICE arriving at your home: “Stay calm, and don’t open the door. Don’t flee. Don’t reveal your immigration status. Ask for a court arrest and/or search warrant. If they have it, ask them to show it through the window and make sure your name, address and a judge’s signature are on it. If they don’t have a court order, you can deny them access.”

And if you are arrested:  “Remain silent. Stay calm, obey the official’s order and always act respectfully. Don’t flee. Ask to speak with your consulate and don’t reveal your immigration status. Contact a lawyer. Don’t sign anything you don’t understand. Note which agency arrested you (sheriff, police, ICE, Border Patrol, etc). Ask for an interpreter and a bail amount. Don’t lie and don’t show false documents.”

Those guides can be accessed by downloading ConsulApp Contigo, a mobile app from the Mexican government that can also find and contact the closest Mexican consulate and notify emergency contacts with the push of a button.

To request consular services by phone, Meléndez Cruz advised calling the Center for Information and Assistance to Mexicans (CIAM), a government agency, at 520-623-7874. For emergencies, the Mexican government has a hotline to reach a Mexican consulate at 303-667-8657.

The Denver area has five consulates representing Latin American countries: Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Meléndez Cruz said the five are working together to inform immigrants about their rights and the resources at the various consulates. On January 4, the five Latin American consulates hosted a Know Your Rights training at Stampede in Aurora that attracted more than 200 people.

Meléndez Cruz promised that his government will never abandon its citizens, a message he said he was relaying from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“Feeling fear is inevitable,” Meléndez concluded. “But it’s important that they know that their government is by their side from the consulate. We’re never going to leave their side in any circumstance.”