The Mexican government has announced that it will remove Consul Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro from Santa Ana, provoking ire among community leaders who view him as an outspoken and unbending advocate for immigrants in Orange County.
Community leaders are collecting signatures to petition for his reinstatement and planning a trip to Mexico City to speak with government officials. They are also planning to protest when Mexico President Felipe Calderon visits Los Angeles next month.
Some residents in this largely Latino city say they have found in Ortiz Haro the sort of fiery leader the town has lacked in recent years.
"With respect to those who served before him, I do not think we have been serviced before the way we have in the last five years," said Alfredo Amezcua, an attorney who said he had worked with the consul in Santa Ana since the Mexican office opened 20 years ago.
"We've made so many advances, and this decision could set us back significantly," he said.
Unlike most diplomats, Ortiz Haro, 47, came to the job after a political career in Mexico City. He ran his Santa Ana office in the style of a populist Latin American patriarch, peppering his conversations with trendy idioms and spending hours on the problems of immigrants, which fell beyond the formal scope of his job.
"It really hurts to leave the people here. It's a job I really like because I can help people and live among them while learning about the lives of immigrants from my country," Ortiz Haro said.
His removal is part of customary changes in the assignment of 48 consuls in the United States and not a reflection on his work, a Mexican government official said. Ruben Beltran, the Mexican consul in Los Angeles, was recently reassigned to New York, and a new consul, Carlos Felix, was assigned to the office in San Francisco.
"Consuls are routinely changed from one position to another. This is part of the process in our foreign service and those of many other countries," said a foreign ministry official who asked not to be identified. "No one can be in a post for an eternity. We will always seek to put in these positions a professional who can serve the community."
But in Santa Ana, this was hardly a mere changing of the guard. Some said Ortiz Haro was the city's -- and perhaps the county's -- strongest advocate for immigrants in a county that is home to some of the nation's most active anti-illegal immigration groups.
