Photo: Jacqueline García/Real America News / Impremedia
Mrs. Claudia Hernández traveled from the state of Wyoming to Los Angeles on Wednesday morning to go to the Honduran Consulate General and obtain his passport. She was shocked to see that in less than an hour they gave her the passport since she thought it would take weeks to receive it.
“We did the appointment about a month ago and they gave it to me for today”, said the Honduran from 39 years. “I am very happy because we come from far away and it is good that they gave it to us today.”
She arrived accompanied by her two brothers and a daughter and they all got their passports on the same day in less than an hour.
Hernandez was the first to receive the passport directly from the Consulate General of Honduras in Los Angeles. This as part of the follow-up to the mandate of President Xiomara Castro and Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina for the Los Angeles consulate to become a passport production center and to officially launch the electronic book.
With the new passport application and issuance system, Hondurans in the United States will be able to obtain their new electronic document on the same day.
The undersecretary of State in the office of foreign relations and international cooperation, Antonio García explained that five years ago the Honduran Foreign Ministry decided to remove the Los Angeles production center under the explanation that there were not enough Hondurans to fill the service and they took it to Dallas, Texas.
By doing this only five states were left in the nation that served as passport printing centers; Dallas,TX, Miami, FL,
“We are now going to have a print center in each of the 14 consulates because the idea is to have this system in all Honduran consulates in the United States and in the world,” said García.
The deputy director said it was a lot of work the way the process had been carried out for the past two years since consulates, like the one in Los Angeles, sent their applications to one of the four printing centers.
“There were about 5 of them,000 requests from all consulates and had to be printed and returned DHL and that bureaucracy made months go by and then they found out that there were no notebooks to print them,” said García. “And that’s how the passport traffic was done, that if you paid someone they would get it out faster.”
But now the The process is more controlled since a batch of two million passport books was purchased in the United States and they have a high-tech chip to have better security measures.
Honduras has a population of 180, Hondurans in California and approximately one million in the United States.
“An 20% of Hondurans live here and I don’t know why they took away the production centers, it doesn’t make sense,” García asserted.
Consul María Fernanda Rivera Fiallos said that She is proud of the launch of the program since a little over two years ago, when she arrived in Los Angeles to represent Hondurans, she promised that the consulate would return to being a passport production center.
“I do not pretend to attribute this important achievement to myself, but I cannot deny you my satisfaction, my pride and the joy of being a participant, of having collaborated even in a minimal way in the development about this project that will be of great benefit to all Hondurans who visit us from different parts of the country”, said Rivera Fiallos.
The process
The consul explained that when a person arrives, by appointment, to obtain his Honduran passport, he registers at the window, then goes to take a photo and all the information is sent to the center of production of the passports that is within the consulate.
There all the data is reviewed, accepted and sent so that it can be printed in one of the passport books that has a chip inserted in the cover of the passport. It cannot be seen but the owner’s information is encoded there.
Then it is sent to the laminator and quality control to ensure that everything is well done and delivered to the owner.
The consul said that at a time when there are not so many people waiting it has to be done in a few 14 minutes but varies depending on the people who need it.
Hondurans who already have their passport can renew it six months before its expiration date. Passports are valid for 5 o years.
More positive changes
Garcia said there are more plans to continue improving forms of identification for Hondurans. The “Identify” project will be arriving in the coming weeks to offer Hondurans in the United States a new identity card with more technology.
This national identification will be bilingual with the address of the Honduran in the United States, it will be valid for 10 years and will cost $25.
“For this the scanning happens here and the printing in Honduras because it is a specific system but we have the commitment to bring the printed identifications in a maximum of 39 days” , said García.
This card will eventually allow them to be able to vote abroad.
To schedule your appointment you must visit citaconsular.sreci.gob.hn