• Mexico’s refugee support agency launched a trial initiative in southern Mexico.
• The goal is to prevent such migrants from obtaining temporary passports.
• Biden administration unveiled its proposed new asylum laws on Tuesday.

Mexico is reconsidering its policy towards asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Biden administration’s contentious new proposal to limit asylum eligibility in the United States.

COMAR, Mexico’s refugee support agency, launched a trial initiative in southern Mexico on Monday to investigate accelerating asylum denials to those deemed likely to travel to the United States.

The goal is to prevent such migrants from obtaining temporary passports given by COMAR while their cases are being processed, which they could then use to move north, which is a typical occurrence, according to COMAR’s chief Andrés Ramrez.

But, when the Biden administration unveiled its proposed new asylum laws on Tuesday, Ramrez stated that COMAR intends to abandon the strategy and use what it learned from the pilot program to develop another solution.

The US proposal, which human rights campaigners and immigration experts have slammed, primarily prohibits migrants who have not followed a legal path and instead traveled via other countries on their way to the US southern border from requesting asylum in the US. It would go into effect in May.

One proposed new ground for qualifying for US asylum is that they have been denied protection in a third nation through which they have traveled.

Ramrez now fears that accelerated asylum denials may make Mexico more appealing as a stopover for people seeking asylum in the United States.

“The new policy that was recently announced [by the United States] changes the whole thing. We need to rethink it,” Ramírez said.

One proposed new ground for qualifying for US asylum is that they have been denied protection in a third nation through which they have traveled.

Ramrez now fears that accelerated asylum denials may make Mexico more appealing as a stopover for people seeking asylum in the United States.

“The new policy that was recently announced [by the United States] changes the whole thing. We need to rethink it,” Ramírez said.

Since last year, the number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border has increased, with many people fleeing authoritarian governments and harsh economic circumstances in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Colombia.

Passing through Mexico

Though the one-week pilot program did not involve issuing swift denials, it did study the behaviors of individuals from nationalities deemed by COMAR to be more likely to be traveling for economic reasons than for international protection – Senegalese and Angolan migrants in particular, according to Ramrez.

Asylum seekers are compelled by Mexican law to remain in the state where they filed for asylum until the procedure is completed.

Asylum seekers who register with COMAR are protected from deportation, have access to the public health care system, and are eligible for employment.

Ramrez claims that his organization recently discovered that many refugees who began the asylum process in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula later abandoned it. They traveled within the country using a provisional COMAR document.

“They are abusing the system,” said Ramírez. “That shows us that many of these people are not really interested in (Mexico’s) refugee system and the asylum procedure.”

He calculated that over 70% of people from countries other than Haiti were abusing the system in Tapachula, Mexico.

Haitians, he claims, are completing the local asylum process at a higher rate.

A record number of applications

According to Ramrez, Mexico has seen an increase in asylum petitions in recent years.

According to COMAR data, approximately 13,000 persons applied for asylum in Mexico in January 2023. According to the data, this is more than double the number of asylum registrations from one year ago in January 2022.

If applications continue at this rate, 2023 could be the busiest year in the history of the UNHCR.

According to him, the record for the most applications ever received was reached in 2021, when COMAR received approximately 130,000 asylum applications.

“We were at risk of collapsing. It was terrible,” Ramírez said.

His top concern right now is to figure out how to keep Mexico’s asylum system from becoming overburdened, he says.

After analyzing the results of this week’s experiment, which documented the behaviors of individuals who likely qualified for expedited denials, his team will submit proposals with new solutions to combat what they see as system abuses – an approach that Ramrez says will eventually allow COMAR to prioritize asylum seekers who intend to make Mexico their home.

“For us, it’s very important to take care of the asylum system in Mexico,” Ramírez said. “If the asylum system is collapsed, then we’re done.”

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