Friday, July 30, 2010

U.S. Consulate in Juarez Closes Unexpectedly

The U.S. Consulate closed unexpectedly in Cd. Juarez yesterday, pending a security review. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City announced the consulate will "remain closed until the security review is completed" and said it would reschedule appointments for visa applications. The Juarez Consulate is the largest U.S. consulate in the world. Nearly two thousand applications for U.S. visas are processed there daily. All persons wishing to obtain a permanent resident visa for the U.S. are required to go to the Consulate for an interview.

On March 13 Lesley Enriquez, who worked at the Consulate, was shot and killed as she left a children's party in Juarez in a white SUV. Her husband, who worked as a guard in the El Paso County jail, was also killed in the attack, leaving a 7-month infant orphaned. The husband of another U.S. Consulate worker was killed simultaneously after leaving the same children's party in a white SUV. There have been several theories about the case, and one person has confessed (click here for story) that he ordered the attacks on both vehicles to make sure Enriquez was killed. This still leaves questions unanswered, inasmuch as the person killed in the other SUV was a man. Why would the killers, if the target was a woman, kill only the man in the other vehicle? There has also been speculation Arthur Haycock Redelfs, Enriquez's husband was the true target of the attack, given his work at the county jail.

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