• The new passport has an electronic chip that stores the holder's biographic information, making it much safer and speeding up entry into other countries.

Today, at an event headed by Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, the first Mexican electronic passports were issued in Mexico City and at the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles, California. The new passport is a secure, modern document that follows international standards.  

The new ePassport instructed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the result of a transparent two-year process supported by the United Nations Office for Project Services (Unops) and the Public Administration Ministry.  

In explaining the importance of the transition to the new passports, the Foreign Secretary said,  “The way that we can contribute [to the commemoration of Mexico's 200th anniversary of independence] is with this passport, which makes everyone safer, improves Mexico's image abroad and enables us to protect children and persons with disabilities."

During the presentation, the Secretary highlighted the features that makes "this a safer and more reliable passport," which will continue to be printed as books, but will now include a polycarbonate datapage and an electronic chip that stores the holder's information.  The changes will not increase the price but will increase their international acceptance. It will now be difficult to forge the passports, which improves Mexico's image internationally.

Furthermore, the first page of children's passports now includes, in color, information about the child's parents or guardians.  The Foreign Secretary highlighted this "innovation," saying it is the first official document to include this information. It will protect "not only children but also persons with disabilities correctly, adequately and fully, as they cannot fend for themselves. Therefore, the guardians or parents will appear here.'' 

The Director General of Passport Offices, Carlos Candelaria, referred to the two years of work needed to issue the passport, saying,  "Our journey started with a transparent tender process that was accompanied by Unops and the Public Administration Ministry to give it legal certainty. It continued with our joint work with the winning consortium that allowed us to include new technologies to provide more efficient service to the public."

Via live link and accompanied by the Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles, Marcela Celorio, the Director General of Consular Services, Jaime Vázquez Bracho, delivered at the Los Angeles consulate the first five Mexican ePassports issued abroad to youths in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

He said that issuing the new passports abroad is an example of the "instructions of President López Obrador and Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to continue modernizing the services provided to our citizens within Mexico and abroad." He said that the new passport is "safer, more reliable and easier to use for our Mexican communities abroad."

Ambassador Marcela Celorio said that, with the ePassport, the entire Mexican community in Los Angeles, and eventually throughout the United States, “will benefit from a document that will give them security and protection and, above all, identity, which is what interests us the most.” 

Starting today, all of Mexico's consular offices abroad that issue passports onsite will gradually transition to the new ePassport.  The process will conclude in January 2022, at which point all of these offices will be issuing the new passport.

Also present at the event in Mexico City were, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, the head of Administration and Finance, José Antonio Domínguez; the Chief of Staff to the Foreign Secretary, Daniel Millán; the Director General of Legal Affairs, César García; the Director General of Properties and Resources, Juan Carlos Mercado; the Director General of Social Communication, Esteban González; and the Coordinator of Infrastructure and Tech Operations of the area for Information Technologies and Innovation, Benjamín Saavedra.  Participating for the Finance Ministry was the Director General of the printing workshops, Sergio Omar Blanco.

The Foreign Ministry reaffirms its commitment to providing safe and reliable identity documents to Mexicans both in Mexico and abroad.

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