Fascinating story from the N&O today. Seems the Mexican consulate in Raleigh is being overrun by the roughly 600,000 Mexican citizens living in the Carolinas looking to secure passports and dual citizenship for children born in the U.S.

The cause? Several — “the requirement that valid passports be used for international flights, the inability of illegal immigrants to renew their North Carolina driver’s licenses, and a rising fear of deportation as North Carolina sheriffs team with immigration officials.”

Reporter Sarah Ovaska also documents this interesting tale:

The Cruz family left their Charlotte home at 4 a.m. to head to the Raleigh consulate, the only outpost the Mexican government has between Atlanta and Washington, so they could get passports.

Fernando Cruz, a construction worker, came to the United States 12 years ago by walking across the border near Douglas, Ariz. He said that it was a different atmosphere then and that he wants to make sure he and his family can return to Mexico by plane if they must leave. Otherwise, he, his wife and three children face a three- or four-day bus trip.

“It’s important if we have an emergency and need to go home to Mexico, we can go on the airplane,” Cruz said. But he’d prefer to stay in the United States where he says his children can be better educated.

Cruz worries about a program that’s been in place at the Mecklenburg County jail since 2006 as part of a partnership with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The program allows specially trained detention officers to investigate the immigration status of people under arrest and start deportation proceedings if a person is in the country illegally.

Why is Cruz worried about the sheriff’s deportation program? Does he plan on getting arrested? And I also wonder if Cruz’s children attend CMS.

Bonus Observation: Surprise! Despite the stated intent for there to be more overlap between McClatchy’s Raleigh and Queen City outlets — Lord knows the sports pages have had a steady diet of N&O columnist Carlton Tudor of late — this story with its obvious Charlotte connection does not appear in the Uptown paper of record.

Meanwhile, my little “hyper-local” SoMeck insert yesterday included over a page and a half of house ads across its slim six pages. You are doing it wrong.