MIAMI, United States. – In 2022, Cubans became the second group of migrants with the highest number of asylum applications in Mexico, according to data from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). quoted by the news agency EFE.
Of the 118,478 asylum requests received by COMAR last year, 18,087 correspond to Cuban migrants, most of whom cross the territory of the Aztec country to reach the southern border of the United States.
The Cubans were second only to the Hondurans, with 31,086 applications, requests. Meanwhile, Haitians were in third place with 17,068.
According to COMAR, the number of asylum applications is the second highest after the 131,448 cases registered in 2021.
“This is the second highest number of applicants registered in Mexico, only below the record number of 2021. Second consecutive year with more than 100,000 applicants”, tweeted Andrés Ramírez Silva, head of COMAR.
After Hondurans, Cubans and Haitians, migrants from Venezuela follow, with 14,823 asylum requests, and those from Nicaragua, with 8,971.
EFE recalled that the data was published in the midst of a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office detained an unprecedented number of more than 2.76 million in fiscal year 2022. of undocumented.
Last monday It transpired that some 5,000 migrants from various countries, including an unspecified number of Cubans, protested on the southern border of Mexico, where they entered by force to go to the COMAR offices, according to international media reported.
In accordance with Forbes Mexico, the migrants were mostly Haitians, Venezuelans, Cubans, Peruvians, Panamanians and other Central American countries; and they congregated since the weekend in the border city of Tapachula.
A Cuban migrant identified as Yanela denounced that thousands of people remained unanswered on public roads and asked the authorities to organize the migrants by country for the sake of order.
“We want papers to stay in Mexico legally and continue the journey to the northern border with the United States,” he told the EFE news agency.
Another Cuban, identified as Jordi Armando, also asked for the cooperation of the Mexican authorities to avoid chaos.
“We entered on December 31, we saw a large crowd of people, it becomes a real chaos and disorder, so it is important that the authorities take action on the matter, because this can get out of control,” he said. .
For their part, COMAR officials announced that they would only serve families with children and that other adults would have to wait their turn in line.
Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented migratory crisis, where not only nationals who travel to Nicaragua and undertake the journey to the southern border of the United States through Mexico are counted, but also the rafters intercepted by the Coast Guard of the northern country.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +525545038831, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
