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DALLAS - An investigation has been launched into a passport scheme involving the Mexican consul in Dallas. Mexico's foreign minister has reassigned Consul General Enrique Hubbard while the investigation continues. While working at the Dallas Mexican consulate, Hubbard allegedly allowed staff members to personally profit from selling passport-size photos and permitted employees to skim money from passport fees. The irregularities in the fees charged were detected by internal controls.

Typically, a foreign consulate in the United States doles out passports, helps travelers in crisis and serves as a liaison to the home country. But the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles has become an almost de facto public agency in recent years, forming partnerships with government officials and nonprofits here to provide healthcare, offer mental health counseling, fight labor violations and hold literacy classes. The consulate took another step earlier this year to meet the needs of Mexicans living in L.A. County by teaming up with the Superior Court and the county's Department of Children and Family Services to regularly...

There are a handful of times in life where you get to experience something that has the feeling of brushing the presence of greatness. In my life at various times that has been something I didn't always realize up front. But having returned from a day and a half and a sum total of nine events over that period of time with one person in particular I have to tell you... I think I did this weekend. In December of 2006 I wrote a column in which I was the first pundit in America to predict that Barack Obama would...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, flanked by Chuck Norris, Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist and U.S. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, stood beneath Laredo's railroad bridge near the riverbank Saturday morning advocating stronger border security, including constructing a border fence, having more law enforcement and eliminating carrizo."I come away from this with a better understanding of this," Huckabee said after touring Border Patrol facilities and later hiking to the edge of the Rio Grande to get a personal view of the terrain. "But also a sense of urgency that as a country we need to put our resources on border...

I am disappointed in the tactics and statements of almost all the presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. My grandmother used to say that you can tell just as big a lie with a half-truth and sometimes a bigger one. Take the half-truths said about Mike Huckabee and taxes. I lived in Arkansas when he was the governor. He did away with the marriage tax penalty and the capital gains tax on the sale homes. He doubled Arkansas' standard deduction and the child care tax credit. He slashed the capital gains tax for both individuals and businesses. In 2001, Mike...

A brand new WarrenPiece1 video -- Go Mike! http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=1276

Injured Boy Has Serious Head Injuries. The parents of Christopher Gonzales, 6, were visiting friends ...where the hit-and-run was witnessed by several neighbors. Christopher was standing near his parents’ friends who were changing a tire to a truck parked in front of the home. He walked from behind the truck, and toward the front when he was hit by the Ford Ranger with two passengers... Witnesses to the scene chased the driver on foot while one got in a vehicle to pursue him. Aurora police arrested the driver of the Ford Ranger, who is identified as Ricardo Gomez-Carcamo, 26, by...

First came the Mexican consular photo identification cards that closely resembled U.S. driver's licenses and allowed immigrants, including those in the country illegally, to establish credit and apply for government services. Then the Mexican government worked with the Treasury Department to make sure the U.S. banking system remained open to immigrants. Now Mexican consulates in the U.S. are taking on an even more formidable challenge: the healthcare system. A program called Ventanillas de Salud, or Health Windows, aims to provide Mexican immigrants with basic health information, cholesterol checks and other preventive tests. It also makes referrals to U.S. hospitals, health...

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to consider whether one of the six killers of Houston teen-agers Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña should escape execution because he was denied a chance to get legal assistance from the Mexican consulate...The debate has strained relations between the United States and Mexico and could determine the fate of more than 50 Mexicans on death row in the United States, including more than a dozen in Texas.

Lake Havasu City [AZ] recently denied a request by the Mexican government to set up an office in the Aquatic Center to process Mexican Consulate identity cards.City Manager Richard Kaffenberger stated in his report before the Lake Havasu City Council Tuesday that the country of Mexico had contacted the city about opening an office here to process matricula consular ID cards. That request was turned down. Matricula consulars are issued by Mexican Consulate offices to Mexican citizens living in the United States. The card was created in 1870 to help consulates keep in contact with Mexican nationals living in the...

Susana Loera remembers the first time she heard her boss tell somebody to break the law. It was in early 2004, and the parents of a Mexican man arrested in Dallas had come to the consulate seeking advice. Luis Lara, Mexican vice consul for protection, found out that U.S. immigration had neglected to put a deportation hold on the prisoner, meaning he could still be released on bail. Lara turned to the anxious parents as Loera stood nearby. "He said, 'My advice to you is to go bond him out now and go back to Mexico,'" Loera says. "He said,...

Mexican Consulate tries to outgun Sheriff Dan Beck... and loses Kevin Fobbs When you think of small town sheriffs you have to feel sort of comfortable with the notion that in each and every small town that dots the landscape of America there is a law enforcement officer is standing between you and the law breakers. You should feel a sense of security that these officers of the law are patrolling your city and country streets looking out for any and all law breakers, but...that may be changing if the Mexican Consulate in Detroit has its way. You see, the...

Hundreds of Mexican citizens lined up outside the Hispanic Service Center to apply for identification cards and passports on Saturday, as representatives from the Mexican Consulate in Dallas came to Tyler to accept applications. Representative Hugo Juarez said the visit is part of the consulate's outreach program to "provide services we normally provide in Dallas." "The idea is to bring the service closer to their homes," Juarez said, explaining that it allows Mexicans to apply in a short time, without having to miss work. Otherwise, applicants would have to travel to Dallas, losing one or two days' salary. Juarez said...

Consular Protection The Embassy and the network of Mexican consulates have initiated a new stage of understanding and cooperation with the areas within the Homeland Security Department that carry out the function of the extinct INS. Currently, the operation of the Internal Consultations Mechanisms is being revised. Through these Internal Consultations Mechanisms, the Mexican Consuls establish communication and cooperation with the authorities of the DHS in order to facilitate the enforcement of notification and consular access to Mexicans detained by these authorities. Deaths of undocumented migrants in the border The prevention of deaths in the border, and the safety of...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - At least one suspect took an unknown number of hostages Tuesday at the Mexican consulate, and a TV news camera later showed a man apparently being shot as he held a woman by the neck. KNBC-TV broadcast videotape of a man clutching a sign while using a woman as a shield as police followed them down a sidewalk. The man suddenly let go of the woman's neck and fell backwards, as if he was shot. The woman escaped unhurt and police closed in on the man. One person was taken to a hospital, said Fire Department...

Just heard on Fox News...

Mexican Consulate seeking free space New director wants to create satellite offices to reduce lines, congestion 09:00 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News and ERNESTO LONDOÑO / Al Día The Mexican Consulate is looking for free space in city-owned buildings to create satellite consular offices. It's all in an effort to ease long lines and congestion at the consulate, said Carlos García de Alba, Mexican consul general in Dallas. Mayor Laura Miller said Mexico's new consul general in Dallas began negotiating for no-cost real estate several weeks ago. "We may not...

Mexico Warns Of Border Closing Consulate Says U.S. Will Take Action If War Begins POSTED: 6:36 p.m. PST March 11, 2003 UPDATED: 6:40 p.m. PST March 11, 2003 SAN DIEGO -- The Mexican Consulate in San Diego says the Department of Homeland Security has put it on notice, and the consulate is alerting businesses along the border to brace for the worst. The Mexican consulate said it was told that if the United States goes to war with Iraq, the color-coded alert system will go to code red, and the lanes of entry at the U.S. border will be...