Migrants are more vulnerable due to closure of Comar: UNHCR

Jessica Xantomila and Jared Laureles

La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, June 16, 2024, p. 7

Amid an incessant flow of migrants arriving in the country, many of whom remain stranded in Mexico City in overcrowded shelters and makeshift camps, the central office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar), in the neighborhood Juárez will be closed for almost a month after the failed plan to open a new headquarters in Anzures.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) assured that this situation is extremely worrying, since the capital is the second city with the highest number of refugee requests. Only in the first five months of 2024, not counting the last week of May (when Comar closed), more than 6 thousand requests were received.

Last year there were 140,812 asylum applications nationwide, and in Mexico City there were 30,623., around 20 percent of the total, said Alejandra Carrillo, head of the UNHCR Field Office in the capital. In addition, she stressed, the procedures in 20 entities in the country depend on this delegation, where there are no offices of said organization, among them the state of Mexico and Puebla.

The Ministry of the Interior (SG) announced that Comar will continue without activities until at least June 21.

In interview with The DayCarrillo pointed out that those affected who intend to request asylum would have to join thousands more who had already started the process, because Many appointments had to be canceled for legitimacy interviews, positive or negative notifications of resolutions and the suspension of signatures that applicants must complete every 15 days.

He explained that Comar also issues the CURP to refugee applicants, carries out monitoring family reunification requests at national level and provides psychosocial care, among other services.

The specialist warned that the suspension of procedures in the commission (to which UNHCR contributes double the budget allocated by the SG) It has generated a lot of uncertainty and confusion among the populationsince during the process of recognition of refugee status, people cannot leave the state in which they requested asylumThat is, if they asked for it in Mexico City, they cannot leave here.

They are in limbo and in fact facing a possible return to a place where their life, safety and freedom are in danger.held.

He asserted that it is urgent for Comar to have a space in decent conditionsgiven that the population it serves is in a lot of vulnerability and a high percentage are families, children and older adults.

Neighbors demonstrate

Regarding the demonstrations carried out by groups of neighbors from the Juárez and Anzures neighborhoods, the latter where the SG unsuccessfully tried to change the Comar offices, Carrillo pointed out that there is a lot of misinformation.

There is no direct relationship between Comar and the settlementssince the majority of those who are in these spaces are waiting for an appointment to request asylum in the United States.

Likewise, he regretted that in the neighborhood demonstrations, particularly in the Juárez neighborhood, there were some expressions that worry us tremendously in terms of discrimination and xenophobiasuch as the fact that they posted posters asking to report to the police when a migrant tries to camp.