What happens with asylum applications to the United States due to drug threats

Latin America is mobilizing, violence, poverty and even political persecution have made people from different countries leave to look for a new life in the United States, far from everything that threatens them and in which drug trafficking has had a lot to do with it. thus quintupling asylum applications.

While migration is a phenomenon that has occurred throughout human history, the current flow of people seeking to reach the United States is unprecedented.

In the specific case of Mexico, the situation is influenced by an issue that marks the lives of the inhabitants of said country: organized crime. And it is that The news of the horrors that drug traffickers leave in their wake throughout the territory are known worldwide..

The newspaper Milenio carried out a special report indicating that asylum seekers claim terror of torture, persecution, harassment, risk of kidnappings and extortion carried out by various organized crime organizations.

Given this reality, The number of Mexicans who requested refuge in the United States skyrocketed in overwhelming proportionsaccording to information obtained from the offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which reveals that asylum requests through a resource called ‘Claims of Credible Fear’ (Credible Fear) increased 564 percent between 2022 and 2023.

“Credible fear” is part of US asylum law. Through this mechanism, a person who demonstrates a clear risk of returning to his or her country of origin cannot be deported from the United States until his or her case is processed, but also It is one of the most complex procedures due to the requirements it imposesbecause first you have to overcome several interrogations from customs and immigration agents.

Proceeds?

Arguing is not something that the US authorities take as reliable, they ask that it be proven, something that applies to all asylum seekers who have been threatened for different reasons. In the case of drug trafficking, the threats may be constant, but the situation can change from one moment to the next.

According to Millennium, extortions and floor charges are the most common, but some cases are dramatic and he gave the example of a woman who fled Ciudad Juárez. After her son was kidnapped and the ransom was paid for her release, the incident was not investigated due to the police’s ties to organized crime.

Violence is also experienced with immigration agents, who tell applicants that they create their own problems and then want them to solve them, immediately sending them back to their country to fix what they have with organized crime.

But with the drug traffic nothing is fixed, generally life is the payment of confronting them. The numbers of those who manage to obtain asylum due to credible fear are discouraging; of around 1,600 applications, only 160 are admitted, that is, 10% of them.

Thus, Mexicans remain at the borders waiting for asylum to save their lives, far from their land, their loved ones and the threat of drug trafficking.

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