Asylum claims are down over 40% in México, but migrants still stranded at southern border

Asylum applications have fallen by 41.9% in México in 2024; however, migrants complain that the decrease is due to legal obstacles in the process at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar).

Between January and May, there were 26,576 applications less than the 63,436 registered during the same period in 2023.

Mexico registered a record of 140,982 applications in 2023, the third highest in the world after the United States and Germany, according to the government.

Asylum seekers came mainly from Honduras (15.389 requests), followed by Cuba (8.029), Haiti (3.353), El Salvador (2.896), Venezuela (2.068), Guatemala (2.014), Colombia (1.010), Nicaragua (456), Ecuador (337) and Chile (192) and other unspecified countries.

Comar reported that it resolved only about one in three cases, of which 73% were approved. NGOs dispute these figures, claiming that the decrease is due to delays in the asylum application process.

Obstacles for migrants

José Gildardo Galdámez, president of the Migration and Human Rights Lawyers Association, told EFE that Comar is receiving fewer people but is also increasing obstacles, not allowing them to be accompanied by an advisor and giving them late dates for appointments.

“The Comar offices, the National Migration Institute and the National Guard, are not issuing documents for migrants, humanitarian visas are being granted in dribs and drabs, it is very complicated, you have to get a lawyer, the Comar is using the law to harm and not to help,” he argued.

Constitutional lawyer José Luis Pérez, a specialist in migratory issues in Tapachula, believes that the number of refugee applicants at the southern border remains the same as in 2023, and that Comar takes so long to process them that it does not register the petitions in its statistics.

“When Comar notifies the migrant to go to their interview, four months have already passed and that person is already at the northern border, Pérez said.

“It is a mirage; there has been no reduction in asylum or refugee applications. There are still the same; there is only procrastination and turtle speed,” he added.

Undocumented migrants still trapped

The drop comes as immigration restrictions have increased in Mexico and the US, after President Joe Biden implemented an executive order two weeks ago to limit asylum and speed up deportations.

Cuban Carlos Alberto Ochoa has been in a makeshift camp in Tapachula for two months, where he waits in the rain for his asylum application to be processed.

“I have been waiting for two months, and I still have not been called for the recorded interview, and this (June) 18 I go to the fourth appointment at Migration. It has been very difficult for me, in a rented house they stole everything, I had to come here because they left me without money,” he said.

The Nicaraguan María Mercedes del Río assures that, despite the decrease in requests, the offices of Comar continue to be saturated.