Emir Olivares and Jared Laureles
La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, December 20, 2025, p. 4
It is expected that in the coming days the Mexican government will approve the appointment of Chiara Cardoletti as the new representative of the office in our country of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Diplomatic sources confirmed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) is already analyzing the appointment of the organization and it is estimated that in January 2026 the international official would have authorization to begin her mission.
Of Italian origin, Cardoletti will replace Giovanni Lepri, who in a few days will conclude his term as head of the UNHCR office in Mexico.
He has a long history in diplomacy and within the United Nations system. Since June 2020, he has served as representative of the UN Refugee Agency for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino.
If he has the approval of Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, Cardoletti will take office in the midst of a complex context for the office and the situation of refugees in the region.
This, as a result of the policies of the US president, Donald Trump, who, in addition to having an anti-immigration line, completely closed the options for international protection and asylum, and also restricted international aid budgets to the maximum.
The above has put the asylum system in Mexico and other nations in the hemisphere in check, and even the UNHCR office in our country operated in 2025 with a budget 60 percent lower than the previous year.
Cardoletti has more than 20 years of experience at the UN, where he has held key positions in crisis contexts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva and Washington.
She has a degree in political science, with a specialization in international law obtained in the European Master in Human Rights and Democratization at the University of Vienna.
After working as an advisor in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she joined the UNHCR in 2000, serving in numerous missions, including those in Sudan, East Timor, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Iran and Afghanistan.
According to her profile, throughout her career she has contributed to shaping UNHCR’s global strategies in Geneva and has been deputy regional representative in Washington.
In 2015 he was assigned the position of UNHCR vice representative for the United States and the Caribbean, a role he held until his arrival in Rome.
Previously, he was responsible for leading and coordinating the protection response to refugees and internally displaced people in the Republic of Sudan.
