LOS ANGELES \u2014 Looking at pictures of her younger self in Mexico, Katherine Melero knows they are so much more than happy memories. For her, the photographs are a reminder of what her mother gave up when she came to the U.S. from Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my mom and me, and then all of our family over there,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now, she is not so sure the American dream that her mother pursued still exists, and it\u2019s why she recently got her dual citizenship from Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for us, we see it more as like long-term planning. So obviously, like, we have a life here. We have friends here. It\u2019s not easy to just, like, pack up and move. But I think having it allows us to do things like start getting property in Mexico,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not alone in reconsidering where she calls home. Last year, the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles saw a 160% increase in dual citizenship registrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The registries shot up to 6,338 in 2025 compared to 2,428 in 2024 and are on track to continue the upward trend this year, having already received 3,476 registries from January through June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Consul General of Mexico, Carlos Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez, said although the data does not give a definitive reason for each applicant, they are tracking a few reasons for the jump.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if you ask why, there would be three main explanations. One is the uncertain times we are going through. For many immigrants, the possibility of returning to Mexico becomes more appealing,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez said.<\/p>\n
Besides politics, he says the baby boomer generation is now retiring and looking to Mexico to settle, and lastly, a new law that made it easier to become a dual citizen is also playing a big role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, on a very deliberate way, they tried to, on the one hand, digitalize much of the procedure. And on the other hand, they eliminated requirements that perhaps were not needed in order to facilitate as much as possible the acquisition of the Mexican nationality,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez said.<\/p>\n
He adds that before they required witnesses and more paperwork.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, someone who has to live their whole lives overseas can, if he or she is the daughter or son of a Mexican national, that person can get a Mexican passport,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez said.<\/p>\n
And while the numbers may not be so surprising in Los Angeles, which is home to the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico, he said the trend is seen across the 53 other consulates in the U.S.<\/p>\n
He notes that globalization may also play a part in this trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that there is so much remote work, they find that Mexico allows them to work over there and travel every weekend to the U.S. and perhaps is a place where their money is going to get them farther,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez said.<\/p>\n
For Melero, the process took about five weeks, and her reasons closely matched what Gonz\u00e1lez Guti\u00e9rrez has noticed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics are the main factor, if I\u2019m being honest,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She says the current administration\u2019s policies, specifically on immigration, have been her biggest push in this decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of feeling of like, I now know what people think about people who look like me or people who come from my background or like that. People just don\u2019t even care about it at all. And so I think that is a big reason why people are looking at other options,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having graduated from college, now working in corporate American and becoming a homeowner felt like she was checking off all the boxes expected of her and while she said she is grateful for the opportunities she\u2019s had, the work hasn\u2019t led to the quality of life she wants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m now feeling like if I stay in the U.S., it\u2019s literally to work all day every day to like barely make ends meet,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What she said about the diminishing quality of life is also taken into consideration as she plans to have kids in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel like I want them to know that there\u2019s more to life than just like working. And, you know, I think as a society, because of all the factors in the U.S., that\u2019s just not something that is like a reality here,\u201d Melero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saying her dual citizenship is more than a second passport, it\u2019s expanding her options beyond the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Looking at pictures of her younger self in Mexico, Katherine Melero knows they are so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5997,7,31533,48,52,51,47,50,49,13,5999,136,28190,5996],"class_list":["post-439089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-california","tag-human-interest","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-politics","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vania-patino","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}