Growing Number of Central American Migrants Await Asylum in Southern Mexico ABC News International
go to original December 23, 2016

Mexico Prepares for Large Increase in Central American Asylum Seekers in 2017 (NewsBeat Social)

More than 8,000 immigrants are expected to seek asylum this year from Mexico, the majority fleeing gang violence in Honduras and El Salvador and to a lesser extent Guatemala. The exodus is turning southern Mexico towns like Tenosique as well as Palenque and Tapachula in neighboring Chiapas state into informal refugee camps.

The decision to settle in Mexico and not continue to the United States is tied to increased recognition of the risks of crossing Mexico and more recently the hostile rhetoric of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the immigrants and their advocates say.

The number of those seeking asylum in Mexico this year is more than double the 3,423 applicants last year — itself a 65 percent increase from 2014. Applications have risen by about 9 percent each month this year, says the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR.



According to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid, or COMAR, about 4,000 of the 6,898 applications it received through October this year made it to the end of the process and of those, 2,162 applicants got refugee status. Another 414 applicants who did not qualify as refugees received other kinds of government protection and escaped deportation.

"More migrants are seeking asylum as information about the possibility spreads," said Rafael Zavala, director of the UNHCR office that opened here a year ago as the number of Central Americans seeking protection rose.

"We expect this year’s trend of people seeking protection here in Mexico to continue," he said.

Read the rest at Mo4ch News

Related: Undocumented Immigrant Families, Children Flooding Mexico Border (Western Journalism)

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