The Cuban Usnavi Rodríguez denounced that the refuge procedures he is carrying out with the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar) in the Tapachula (Chiapas) offices are “slow” and there is “disorganization.” According to this man from Havana, a relative and his wife have stayed to sleep in the queue, but “Haitians are very aggressive and nobody wants problems with them.”
Rodríguez, who has a safe-conduct granted by the authorities, told 14ymedio that the Immigration officials do not allow him to board a bus that will take him to Mexico City. They argue that the document they gave him only allows him to reach Arriaga, a municipality located some 247 kilometers from Tapachula. “People are upset. At night the kennels (vans with officers) go out and take those they want.”
Karla Asunción and her husband went to the Comar offices last week. “He entered to apply, but they only wrote it down on paper and when he wanted to give my passport they said no, that was enough.” This woman from Havana denounced that what they are looking for is “to disintegrate us so that we cannot continue with the process.”
Cuban Usnavi Rodríguez said that at night the kennels (vans with officers) come out and take those they want
The head of the Comar, Andrés Ramírez, accepted in an interview with the Spanish newspaper The country that his office “is on the brink of collapse”. This problem arose due to the increase in requests after the launch of the new US program with the entry permit for up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti each month, thus expanding a plan that had been launched in October to grant paroles humanitarians to Venezuelans.
Through their social networks Ramírez shared figures on the groups of migrants who have requested asylum in the past month of January. “For the first time in the history of the refuge in Mexico, nationals of Afghanistan are in the top 10,” the official said. “430 applied for refugee status, ranking seventh on the list. This figure is 15.3% higher than all Asian applicants from 2013 to 2021.”
He reiterated his concern because, at the end of January, the Comar registered 12,863 applications. “Last year’s monthly average was 1,429, that is, it is almost nine times more this month, which puts us at the levels of 2021, when we had the historical record, when 50,000 Haitians requested refuge.”
Nationals from Haiti lead the list with 4,305 applications, those from Honduras with 2,837, from Venezuela 1,337, from Cuba 872 and from El Salvador 562.
? We share the statistics of applicants for refugee and refugee status in Mexico at the close of #January2023 pic.twitter.com/lAaWekS7Il
– Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (@comar_sg) February 3, 2023
According to Usnavi Rodríguez, those 872 requested refugee status because they want to “avoid deportation.” He mentioned that his own relatives were returned to Guatemala on one occasion and since December 17 they have not been able to leave Tapachula. “The safe-conduct is not valid, there is no asylum, it seems that Mexico wants to return us to Cuba.”
Andrés Ramírez, from Comar, lamented that migrants “see the asylum system as a springboard” to get to the US. “They make savings and request these special visas (offered by the US). We have to watch out to protect people, but also the asylum system itself, so as not to become a kind of travel agency”.
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