EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The State Department has named a new U.S. consul general in Juarez, Mexico. His name is Rafael Foley. He is the former director of the Washington, D.C.-based Office of Policy and Coordination in the department’s Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Foley took over on Wednesday from Acting Consul General Tor R. Petersen. The previous consul general, Eric S. Cohan, left in February.
In a statement, the State Department described Foley as a career foreign service member who has served in diplomatic missions in Colombia, Venezuela, Managua, the Vatican, The Hague, Islamabad and Abuja, Nigeria. He has master’s degrees in international relations and theology and has received awards for promoting the advancement of democracy.
“We give Mr. Rafael Foley the warmest welcome and immediately pledge all of our will to strengthen and develop the relationship between our nations for the benefit of our people,” Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said on Thursday.
The American consulate is one of Juarez’s economic engines, as its hotels, restaurants, medical offices and copy services serve thousands of Mexican citizens who come to the city when called to their immigration interviews. This so-called consular tourism means millions of dollars to Juarez every year.
State Department graphic
The U.S. consulate in Juarez is one of the busiest diplomatic missions in the Western Hemisphere, particularly when it comes to issuing immigration visas. The consulate processed 68,957 immigrant visas in fiscal year 2023.
By comparison, the consulate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil only issued 5,378, Buenos Aires, Argentina, issued 978 and Lima, Peru, 6,628, according to State Department data.
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