MORE MIGRANTS FINDING SANCTUARY IN MEXICO
More than 9,000 applied for asylum in March, a record
Record numbers of asylum seekers are applying for sanctuary in Mexico — some after arriving at the southwest border of the United States hoping to find a safe haven under President Joe Biden but hitting a closed door.
In March, the Mexican government received asylum petitions from more than 9,000 people, the highest monthly tally ever, officials said. And they predicted that the surging demand, evident in recent months, would continue, possibly reaching a total of 90,000 asylum requests by the end of the year, which would also be an all-time high.
The soaring numbers of asylum petitions in Mexico are in part a reflection of the turmoil at the U.S. border, where the Biden administration is struggling to deal with a surge in undocumented migration and has prevented many asylum-seekers from presenting their cases to immigration officials.
Mexico has also become an increasingly attractive destination in its own right for refugees, who have generally found asylum easier to achieve in Mexico than in the United States. Some have also been drawn by the opportunity to reunite with family and friends, and by possibilities of work and a degree of safety that they lacked at home.
The sharp increase has put additional stress on humanitarian groups and on the Mexican government, which has been under pressure from Washington to do more to curb the northbound
flows of migrants from Central America and elsewhere.
“Enormous amounts are arriving,” Andrés Alfonso Ramírez Silva, general coordinator of the Mexican government agency that processes
asylum petitions, said of the case load. “With the personnel we have, we have to deal with a number that grows and grows and continues to grow.”
For decades, Mexico was essentially a thruway for people from Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world seeking to reach the United States. But in the past few years, Mexico has become a more attractive destination for migrants.
Many migrants and refugees have arrived in Mexico only to find that access to the United States is not as easy as they were led to believe.
Officials and advocates say that an increasing number of asylum seekers are arriving already with the intention of settling in Mexico. Most asylum applications in Mexico are filed in the southern border states, suggesting that people are submitting their requests upon arrival.
“What we frequently hear now is, ‘If they offer me something to stay, I’ll stay in Mexico,’” said Brenda Ochoa, director of the Fray Matías Human Rights Center, a migrant advocacy group in the southern city of Tapachula.
“It’s not a second option.”
Some refugees inclined to stay in Mexico are seeking to reunite with relatives and friends who arrived earlier and put down roots, said Ramírez, director of the Mexican asylum agency, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, or Comar.
Some are also drawn by Mexico’s enormous demand for low-wage labor, a need that the government has advertised.
“If they compare the type of life they have in their own countries, at the end of the day they have it better here,” in Mexico, Ramírez said.
And the country’s approval rate for asylum is high: During the first three months of this year, it reached 73 percent, with another 7 percent receiving other sorts of humanitarian protection.