TAPACHULA, Mexico – Asylum requests in Mexico skyrocketed 30.8% in the first three quarters of the year to a record of 112,960, as revealed this Wednesday by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar), a phenomenon that is perceived in the saturated southern border.
Although these are the formal requests recognized by Comar, The number of migrants who have approached the organization amounts to 154,250, so the increase would be 80% year-on-year, stated Daladier Anzueto, regional delegate of the commission in Tapachula, on the border of Mexico with Guatemala.
“What Comar has operated from January 1 to September 15, 2023 is 154,250 people. What does this mean? “They approach Comar to obtain a document that allows them later, in eight or 10 weeks, to gain access to the procedure itself,” the official said in an interview.
The main country of origin of the applicants is Haiti, which represents a third of the total, 33.41%, the equivalent of 37,736 requests.
Honduras follows, with 31,055 petitioners, almost 27.5%.
The main list is completed by Cuba (12,777), El Salvador (5,033), Venezuela (4,784), Guatemala (4,646), Brazil (3,531), Chile (3,183), Colombia (2,144), and Ecuador (1,456), while “ other countries” represent 6,615.
The procedure with Comar makes it possible to “obtain a certificate that allows the person to have a CURP (Unique Population Registration Code (CURP), a certificate and a biometrization of the people,” Anzueto explained.
Unprecedented migration and refuge
The records of asylum requests reflect the “unprecedented increase in migrants in Central America and Mexico,” as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned last week.
The saturation is palpable in Tapachula, on the southern border of Mexico, where more than half of the applications nationwide are received, a total of 60,496 so far this year.
In the current migratory wave, which began last month, up to 6,000 migrants arrive at this border daily, as the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, acknowledged on Monday.
Within this wave came Camilo Fransua, who exchanges dollars for pesos, and sells cell phone tools, soft drinks, water, and ham and cheese sandwiches.
Fransua, who is the son of Haitian migrants but was born in the Dominican Republic, said that his journey consisted of traveling by plane to El Salvador, arriving by land in Guatemala and crossing the Suchiate River by raft until reaching Tapachula, where he now plans to stay.
“Mine is going well, I already have the humanitarian card, I already interviewed for the permanent visa, I want to stay in Tapachula, because the Tapachula system is calm, zero drinking and drinking, everything is calm, I love Tapachula, you can work, Since I arrived I have been working, thank God I support my family,” he said.
Saturated border
Meanwhile, Jesús Antonio Flores, from Honduras, is part of hundreds of migrants who are about 50 meters from the Tapachula ecological park, where They have improvised a camp with tents and blankets on the ground awaiting their appointment at Comar.
“We have been here for eight days, we have slept withstanding the water, sun and hunger, we are waiting for papers, we have already done the first procedure, the first paper, we have to wait to get the second one,” he said.
His case exemplifies the humanitarian crisis that migrants face due to the saturation of Mexico’s southern border.
“Here we protect ourselves in those tents, in those disposable houses, where water enters underneath. (We have to) wait for the water to pass and dry, the authority has not told us anything, we are just waiting for the support of the Government,” Flores said.
By Juan Manuel Blanco
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