Mexico is placing all the blame on the United States for the number of asylum applications in the country hitting a record high since we are not taking in any more refugees.
Nearly 108,200 migrants have applied for refugee status in Mexico in the last 10 months, according to Andrés Alfonso Ramírez Silva, Mexico’s refugee office director. During the same period in 2019, Mexico set the previous record high of approximately 70,300 applications.
An increase in asylum applications in Mexico “is partly due to the refusal by the U.S. government to open its asylum system,” Colegio de la Frontera Norte Population Studies Director Rodolfo Cruz Pineiro said.
“Mexico’s government is forced to open its refugee system more,” Cruz Pineiro said. “However, the budget allocated for these migrants is scarce.”
U.S. border officials encountered a record high of 1.7 million migrants at the Mexican border from September 2020 through September 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Migrants say they traveled to the U.S. for a number of reasons, including natural disasters, violence, and economic decline in their home countries.
Mexican officials received 81% more asylum applications in 2021 than from 2013 to 2018 cumulatively. Most asylum seekers came from Haiti and Honduras, with some from Cuba, El Salvador, and Venezuela.
Leave a Comment