Officials want to count Belizeans in U.S.A.

If you are watching or reading this newscast online from somewhere in the United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to know who you are and where you live. That’s right, as part of a census of sorts, the Government of Belize, through its consular offices in Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles and the widespread network of honorary consulates, is attempting to ascertain how many Belizeans are living in the U.S. According to a press release issued today, the idea behind the exercise is to assist officials in providing “more efficient consular services” and more importantly, determine how many machine readable passports they’ll need to issue to citizens living in the States. Officials say that database will be kept strictly confidential, largely because given the large number of Belizeans living illegally in the U.S. that information could cause a lot of problems with Homeland Security. If you would like to register for the survey, you can do so at the nearest consular office or at the website www.embassyofbelize.org. No hard figures exist for the number of Belizeans living abroad or even how to define a Belizean, particularly if he or she is born of a Belizean parent living outside of Belize. Estimates have generally placed the number of diasporas Belizeans at an amount roughly equal to those living in Belize.