Every once in a while, here on the blog, I try to shed a little bit of light on the Foreign Service, and what it is exactly that we do all day. I have already talked about a lot of the other intricacies of this job, including how to get hired, Flag Day, and what it's like to move all around the world every couple of years. But in case any of the readers who stumble across this blog have more general questions, here are the basics:
The U.S. State Department is separated into two groups, the Civil Service and the Foreign Service. As the names suggest, the Civil Service employees mostly live and work in Washington, DC. The Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) live mostly overseas, spending generally 2-3 years in one post, before moving on to another in a different part of the world, occasionally returning for an assignment in DC as well. Currently, there are approximately 7,500 FSOs working throughout the world.
FSOs staff all of the embassies and consulates overseas. Embassies act as the official representative of the US in a particular country, and the ambassador is always located at the embassy. Consulates are generally a bit smaller, and are usually more focused on visas-related issues. Whether a nation has more than one US institution generally depends on the size of the nation and the amount of ties it has with the US. For example, Romania just has an embassy. Spain has an embassy with one consulate (Barcelona). Mexico has an embassy with nine consulates (Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Hermosillo, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Merida).
Prior to joining the Foreign Service, FSOs must select one of five career tracks (or "cones") that will define their career. Although you can work in a job outside of your cone, it is generally expected that you will spend most of your overseas tours working in your cone. The cones are: Political, Economic, Management, Public Diplomacy, and Consular. Political officers focus on meeting with members of the local government and working on reports tied to political issues. Economic officers do the same thing, but with an emphasis on economics as opposed to politics. Management officers (which is a bit of misnomer), are not automatically managers of other officers. Instead, they keep an embassy running through human resources, housing, and facilities maintenance. Public Diplomacy officers organize events to help promote US interests and strengthen ties in the host country.
Which brings us to my own selected cone: Consular. Consular affairs consist of three major responsibilities: Non-Immigrant Visas (NIV), Immigrant Visas (IV), and American Citizen Services (ACS). NIV involves all people who want to travel to the US for reasons other than living there permanently. In Mexico, anybody who would like to come the US for shopping, tourism, study, work, etc., must first obtain a visa. I spent the first nine months of my time in CJ working on these. IV involves all people who are planning to immigrate to the US, usually because of some family relationship (e.g. they are married to a US citizen). I have spent the last three months in CJ working on these.
Finally, we have ACS. It involves some activities like issuing passports, replacing lost passports, and issuing birth certificates to US citizens born abroad. However, it also involves more unique responsibilities like visiting US citizen prisoners, searching for missing US citizens, providing death notifications, visiting hospitals, etc.
ACS is what inspired me to write this blog post in the first place. After a year at post, I have been selected to spend a six-month rotation in the ACS unit on the second floor of the Consulate. I am incredibly excited to be working in this unit, as I think it involves some of the most interesting work available in the Foreign Service. As cliche as it may sound, I joined the Foreign Service for many reasons, but first and foremost, I want to help people in trouble overseas. I am sure this opportunity will no doubt provide countless bizarre stories (as was the case in both IV and NIV), but hopefully, it will also allow me to do some good here in Mexico.
Anyway, for any FSOs who may be reading this post, I recognize that this is an incredibly simplified explanation of the work we do in the Foreign Service, but hopefully everybody else found it at least somewhat interesting. Hasta luego!
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