The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020

12 OCTOBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL accounted for nearly two- thirds of them.  As the world’s largest processor of H-2 visas, Con- sulate General Monterrey was in a critical position and had to act quickly to help avoid a catastrophic labor shortage. But we also had to mitigate the public health risks posed by our intake process.   In coordination with Embassy Mexico City and Consular Affairs Bureau col- leagues in Washington, D.C., our section sprang into action. We implemented social distancing procedures in the office and waiting room, split our workforce into teams to minimize contact and halted all interviews beginning March 24. Our managers even made masks for everyone to wear at the office.  We cleared a plan for demonstrably approvable H-2 workers to be issued visas without in-person interviews, while maintaining secure adjudication. Individuals with a potential ineligibility LETTERS-PLUS I arrived in Monterrey last fall as a first-tour consular officer, eager to adjudicate visas in one of the highest-volume posts in the world. I was briefed about the high season fromMarch to June, when 3,000 or more Mexican workers gather on the sidewalk in front of our consulate every day before dawn, as part of a carefully orchestrated route to supply U.S. farms with labor in time for harvest.    Colleagues hustled all winter to prepare our team with the knowledge and resilience for the workload surge. We held workshops and training sessions, and even set up a relax- ation room for the needed breaks. We were ready. But just as this year’s peak season arrived, COVID-19 hit, and everything had to immediately change.   No longer could we guide thousands of workers a day through our waiting room for interviews. At the same time, farmers’ concerns about getting the workers they needed for harvest reached a fever pitch. Workers on H-2 visas carry out a large portion of U.S. farm and other manual labor. In FY 2019, U.S. embas- sies and consulates worldwide issued more than 300,000 H-2 visas. Monterrey Consulate Monterrey Helps Secure  U.S. Food Supply During Pandemic PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION JULY-AUGUST 2020 LIVING UP TO OUR IDEALS PANDEMIC DIPLOMACY BY REED LANGERUD IN RESPONSE TO THE JULY-AUGUST FOCUS ON PANDEMIC DIPLOMACY Reed Langerud joined the State Department in 2019 and is a first-tour consular officer serving in Monterrey, Mexico. still required an in-person interview. We expanded our remote team processing H-2s to include adjudicators through- out Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Officers in Monterrey oversaw these adjudications and also pitched in with the work of local staff, printing and pasting visa foils.   With our new global corps of H-2 adju- dicators coordinated by the Kentucky Consular Center, we have been able to satisfy visa demand, a remarkable feat. Farms will still face challenges because of falling demand from restaurants, distribution disruptions and the hurdles of implementing public health recom- mendations at worksites. However, with the help of Consulate General Monterrey, concerns about manual labor short- ages have been alleviated.  Though the relaxation room is on hiatus for obvious reasons, the sense of camaraderie and pride at securing a critical link in the U.S. food supply chain is exactly what our team needed at this moment to maintain morale. Sure, I did not experience the peak season I expected. But I have been able to see something much more remarkable: the adaptability, responsiveness and calm of my colleagues as we drastically overhauled operations and procedures without an interruption in service. I am hopeful that Americans—and communities around the world—will continue to find new ways to come together and support one another through this crisis. n Farmers’ concerns about getting the workers they needed for harvest reached a fever pitch.