Emir Olivares and Jessica Xantomila
La Jornada newspaper
Monday, April 21, 2025, p. 4
Donald Trump’s decision to restrict the budgets to international assistance to the maximum has placed the asylum system in Mexico in check: the United Nations High Commissioner Office for Refugees (UNHCR) will have a 62 percent drop in the budget for 2025.
Officials linked to the asylum system indicated that the decline of these resources has begun to have negative effects on support programs for the requesting population of that right and refugee and dozens of shelters in national territory, and even affect the operation of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar), which since 2019 receives from the UNHCR to two thirds of its annual resources.
According to the public reports of this UN Agency, last year, its office in Mexico had a budget of 58.6 million dollars (about 1,169 million pesos). Of that total, 85 percent (just over 50 million dollars) came from Washington’s subsidies through the Office of Population, refugees and migration of the State Department, being the main source of financing.
With Trump’s arrival at the White House for a second period, and his new policies on contributions to humanitarian assistance, today the reality is another.
This year, the UNHCR Mexico Budget will reach only 22.2 million dollars (around 440 million pesos).
Silvia Garduño, UNHCR México spokesman, acknowledged that these substantial cuts They have begun to affect the operation
of that instance.
This will lead, he said, to a readjustment in the schemes with which he had been working, and priority will be given to maintain attention and support for asylum seekers and refugees in Mexico.
One of the first measures of the Trump administration in this second mandate was submitted to revision
All the help that the United States had labeled for global humanitarian development and assistance through various government offices, so cuts have been given in various areas of human rights, migration, environmental protection, education and health, to name a few.
Paradoxically, the UNHCR Budget Mexico had important increases in the first presidential period of the Republican. In 2019, the United States allocated 50 million dollars to ACNUR Mexico, in 2020, 47.9 million, according to public reports.
The new measures of the tycoon occur in a context in which human mobility in the hemisphere has reached unprecedented flows. According to acnur estimates, in the Americas there are 20 million people displaced by force.
In the case of Mexico, in a decade the requests of people looking for asylum were shot up. Comar figures show that in 2014 there were 2 thousand 137 and last year 78 thousand 975. It was 2023 the year with more procedures of this type with 140 thousand 720 requests.
Less resources, greater challenges
The region, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, became a fundamental piece to respond to the protection needs of thousands of people and maintain the tradition of Mexico as a host country. However, budgets for that institution have not gone in line with the size of the challenge.
To settle the economic limitation, in 2019 the region and UNHCR established an agreement through which this UN instance provides approximately two thirds of the resources of the first.
Last year, in the Federation Expenditure Budget, little more than 51 million pesos was granted to the region and, thanks to the agreement with the UNHCR, its resources almost tripled. Because of the cuts for 2025 decreed from Washington, today that support is at risk.
In addition to this, for this year the Chamber of Deputies allocated 10 percent less resources for the region, which will have 47 million 866 thousand 822 pesos during the current fiscal year.
For Silvia Garduño, the reduction in UNHCR resources can have an impact on the region, affecting the attention for asylum seekers, the efficiency of the processes and the ability of the asylum system.
Another of the sequelae in the work of UNHCR Mexico will be seen in the integration program, with which this agency has achieved that from 2016 to date 50 thousand refugees and asylum seekers move from the south to entities of other parts of the country, achieving its reintegration with work, educational and health options, among others.
In fact, the integration of refugees in Mexico contributes to the least seek to reach the United States.
The ACNUR spokeswoman emphasized that strengthening the asylum system has allowed many people who have fled violence consider that Mexico is a life option, and that prevents them from seeking to reach the United States.
On their side, the official sources consulted pointed out that the budget cuts ordered by Trump will derive in a new rise in migratory flows – controlled to their goal of containing them -, since seeing themselves without asylum options in countries such as Mexico, They will seek other options to reach the United States, which will lead to greater risks to its integrity
.
