by Colombian community organizations in Miami denounced this Friday that the services of the General Consulate of Colombia have worsened since Gustavo Petro is president and they linked it to the fact that the majority of those registered in said center did not vote for him.
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No official from the Consulate General in Miami was available to offer an institutional version on the matter.
Fabio Andrade, president of the Americas Community Center of Florida to help immigrants, told EFE that the Petro government does not attend to the operation of the Consulate General in Miami as it deserves, because More than 90% of those registered in that government entity do not support Petro in the 2022 elections.
«This government has decided not to serve people and we are also without a consul to solve the problem,» said Andrade, who called on the media today to denounce poor consular service.
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The community leader, of conservative ideology, said that many people have left Colombia and those who enter the United States irregularly lack documents, so they need identification to be proven efficiently at the consulates.
As he maintained, The fact that 92% of those registered at the Miami Consulate General did not support Petro electorally would be the reason for this hypothetical «retaliation» in the form of an inefficient service.
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One of the problems he denounced is that Colombians from South Florida who try to get an appointment online through the consulate’s website simply can’t do it because the system doesn’t work.
Twitter. @FabioASays
José Hernández, a 38-year-old Colombian from Bogotá and with dual nationality, told EFE that in order to update his documentation he went personally to the Consulate General in Miami, where they gave him an appointment in three weeks, which was horribly unacceptable. .
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«When I then tried to get an appointment through the internet, it took me 2 weeks to get it, since, among other things, once the request section is accessed, it must be completed in just 2 minutes, which makes it very complicated«, he said visibly upset.
Another of those who denounced feeling harmed is Oscar Gaitán, from Armenia, capital of the Quindío department, also with dual nationality, who told EFE that in his case, given the impossibility of being treated in Miami, he had to travel to Colombia, where It took 6 months for the process to obtain his passport.
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«At the Consulate General in Miami they told me that they could not attend to me and that the solution was for me to travel to Colombia,» he said, after underlining the economic damage that the whole process has caused him.
Jaime Flórez, a Colombian-American journalist linked to the US Republican Party, told EFE that the Petro Administration has to «take urgent measures to resolve this problem», after recalling that it is not a free service, since, on the contrary, it can cost close to 100 dollars to issue a passport.
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If there is no clarity on the Internet issue and people are taking several weeks to get an appointment, the consulate should open its doors and receive people who need it.
«If there is no clarity on the Internet issue and people are taking several weeks to get an appointment, the consulate should open its doors and receive people who need it,» he said.
«I am convinced that it is a political retaliation from the Petro Administration, because the voters here have clearly shown that they do not want left-wing governments,» he said.
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EFE
