Mexico has announced a growing wave of refugees from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala who are resettling there instead of trying to reach the United States, which many see as increasingly hostile.
The rise in refugee resettlement in Mexico has paralleled a decrease in immigration to the United States, with apprehensions by U.S. Border Patrol down sharply at the frontier – especially of unaccompanied children and families.
Under President Donald Trump, U.S. authorities have sought to ramp up immigration enforcement and decrease the number of refugees. Last week Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, warned that those who enter the U.S. illegally “should not be comfortable” and “should be concerned that someone is looking for you.”
“I do think there are fewer people deciding to focus their sights on the United States precisely because it has projected itself as being an unwelcoming country,” said Maureen Meyer, a senior associate for Mexico at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights-focused organization.
After Mexico received 3,424 applications for refugee status in 2015, that rose to 8,794 the following year and applications are already outpacing that this year with 5,464 just from January to May.
Nearly all are people from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Central America, where street gangs are largely free to terrorize the population and murder rates are some of the world’s highest outside of open war zones. The Mexico office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees believes the country could receive 20,000 requests by year’s end.
“We’re talking about entire families, of entire generations … who arrive at Mexico’s southern border,” said Francesca Fontanini, regional spokeswoman for the UNHCR. “Obviously, facing this avalanche of people the humanitarian response needs to increase.”
Belize, Costa Rica and Panama also saw a rise to more than 4,300 refugee applications last year from people fleeing El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
Even as it has cracked down on illegal migration along its southern border, Mexico has come under pressure to welcome more refugees. Both the United Nations and Mexican officials attribute the increase in asylum applications to government and NGO efforts to make potential refugees aware of their rights.
Increasingly, word has made it back to Central America that it’s easier to resettle in Mexico.
“If you look at Mexico’s definition of who can qualify for asylum, it’s much broader than the United States,” Meyer said. “If you are fleeing widespread violence in your country, you may be able to qualify for asylum in Mexico, whereas in the U.S. you have to prove that you belong to very specific groups of people.”
Last year Mexico granted refugee status to one of every three applicants from the Northern Triangle, according to government data. Several hundred more were allowed to stay without being recognized as refugees.
In the United States, by contrast, people from those nations have among the highest asylum denial rates – about 80 percent – according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.