Naukalpan de Juárez, Mexico – It was not long ago that the number of migrants on the US southern border claimed asylum, overwhelming federal agents and setbacks of the immigration courts.
Now the border is the calmest that has been for years, especially because the Trump government has hired the processing of asylum stress – and further advanced this responsibility.
Mexico has seen more asylum applications in the past few weeks than at some point in recent times, their refugee authority, which had been shaped by the recent US deporters and migrants who had driven north, but were stranded by President Trump's approach.
The Mexican government has not published the latest data on asylum sayings, but a civil servant who is familiar with the figures said that the figures are three to four times higher than before Trump in November, with up to 1,000 migrants a day start.
The armed forces of the US Marine Corps near San Diego Patrouille on the border with Mexico on February 7, 2025.
(Denis Poroy / Associated Press)
The increase underlines the way the border policy of Trump puts new pressure on Mexico. Before that, a country in which migrants simply went on the way to the United States is increasingly viewed as Plan B for those who have not been able to do it or have been deported and have the feeling that they are not returning home.
However, there are growing fears that the Mexico asylum system is not prepared to deal with the increase. And the affairs were worsened by the 90-day freezing of the US humanitarian aid by the Trump government.
In the amount of around 2 billion US dollars for Latin America and the Caribbean, the quantities and compulsive accommodation, legal assistance providers and other groups that work with migrants in Mexico are now working in order to dismiss employees or to suspend their business at a time when they are most needed. It is also expected that freezing leads to cuts by the Mexican refugee authority, which was indirectly financed with US money that was channeled through the United Nations.
“This is worse than anything I have ever seen,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women in Migration, a non-profit organization in Mexico that is committed to migrants, and refers to the shift in the US limit and the sudden withdrawal of help. “There is only a lot of frustration and confusion.”
The United States has turned to its southern neighbor to block migrants since at least the Obama government, when Mexico agreed to increase the deportations and dramatically militarily militarily. In recent times, Biden Administration and the first Trump administration dismissed contracts with Mexico to oblige asylum seekers to wait there while their claims were processed.
President Claudia Sheinbaum has recognized that her country will receive non-Mexican deported and reproduce some to her home countries.
“This is what Mexico has been doing for years,” said Josue Leal, who heads a migrant protection called Oasis de Paz del Espíritu Santo amparito in South Mexico. “We did the dirty work for the United States.”
Leal once worked with eleven others in the Tin-Dach animal home in the city of Villaherermosa. After freezing the United States, he had to relieve half of his employees. At the same time, the demand for legal services has increased, he said. In January, the shelter of the shelter helped 224 people to apply for asylum in Mexico, compared to 106 the month before.
It seems that most of people who are looking for refuge here are 270,000 people who were waiting in Mexico while looking for appointments on the US border with a cell phone application known as CBP One from the bidue era period. Trump ended the program abruptly on his first day.
In a branch of the Mexican refugee authority in Naucalpan de Juárez, a suburb of Mexico city, the people who were wrapped around the building on a recent morning is waiting. Most came from three countries that were occupied by poverty and political oppression: Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
The 40 -year -old Nereida Carrera from Venezuela is flanked by her daughters outside the Mexican refugee authority in Nauckalpan de Juárez. Carrera, who worked on the campaign of a Venezuelan opposition leader last year, fled the country after his authoritarian leader had won.
(Kate Linthicum / Los Angeles Times)
Nereida Carrera, 40, a political activist who worked at the campaign of an opposition leader in Venezuela's presidential election last year fled with her family after the nation's authoritarian leader had won, even though he had lost sufficient evidence.
Carrera's husband managed to raise an asylum claim at the US border and received permission that enables him to legally work in Florida while waiting for the result of his case.
Carrera and her two daughters, 20 and 11, had a appointment on February 3 to present their asylum sayings at the Mexicali border. The girls were thrilled, said Carrera. After the distance of months, “they thought they would see their father.”
Trump's cancellation of the app destroyed them all. “He's there,” she said of her husband, “and we are here with broken hearts.”
Now there is a strong family debate. The daughters are not ready to give up the US father in the USA, and consider “report” to Mexico to unite with his family.
Carrera said she was looking for asylum elsewhere in the world, possibly in Europe.
“I don't know where to go,” she said. “But we will get the refugee status here in Mexico while we find out.”
It is unclear how many of those who apply in Mexico for asylum, now stay here in the long term and how many use the process to obtain legal status that enables them to work and avoid harassment by the police while making other plans.
Carrera and other spoke about the challenges of life as immigrants in Mexico, where the work is sufficient and the food is relatively cheap, but where xenophobia, violence and corruption are common.
Humberto Briceño, 39, from Venezuela, is waiting for a appointment outside the Mexican refugee authority in the city of Nauckalpan de Juárez. He is one of the migrants who want to stay in Mexico after the Trump government ended asylum at the border between the USA and Mexico.
(Kate Linthicum / Los Angeles Times)
Humberto Briceño, 39, also from Venezuela, said that gangs and immigration officers have blackmailed money while waiting in Mexico to claim asylum in the United States. He finally found work as a security guard, but said that he earned less than $ 80 for a 72-hour work week.
Now that Briceño's dream of reunification with the family in the USA seems to be unreachable, he hopes to stay in Mexico. The return to Venezuela is not an option. “They would call you a terrorist and put you into prison,” he said. “You would disappear you.”
His friend Carlos Ordaz, 50, also said that he would not voluntarily return to Venezuela, although Mexico would bend free flights to Caracas in the past few months.
“We sold our houses, our cars, to make this trip,” he said. “We have nothing to do.”
Carlos Ordaz, 50, also from Venezuela, is now looking for refuge in Mexico instead of the United States. “We sold our houses, our cars, this trip,” he said. “We have nothing to do.”
(Kate Linthicum / Los Angeles Times)
Asylum applications in Mexico have gone up in recent years and rose from 1,295 in 2013 in 2023 to 140,982.
Mexico, the 13th largest economy in the world, has the ability to absorb it, said Andrés Ramírez, the former director of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Support.
“There are many countries in the world that have much poorer economies than Mexico and much more migrants,” he said.
Since the Mexican immigration officials have tried to prevent migrants from reaching the US border in recent years to fear people and bring them south, many in poorer communities near Guatemala have been involved in bottlenecks. The fight against the needs of these population groups – and the processing of an increasing number of asylum sayings at the national level – must “strengthen the operating capacity of the Mexican institutions,” said Ramírez.
However, the refugee authority is ready to lose resources. It is partially supported by the High Commissioner of the United Nations for refugees who have received funding from the United States for a long time. US donations to the UN will get on hold due to the freezing of the humanitarian aid.
Mexico recently increased the refugee authority's budget. However, it included a much greater increase in the country's national immigration institute, which is commissioned to deport migrants without legal status. Ramírez said this was an indication that the authorities are more interested in monitoring migrants than helping them.
He said that the country's ability to deal with the growing demand in his asylum system could depend on whether Trump's threat is actually materialized by widespread deportations.
During his first month of office, Trump deported fewer people than the average in the last full year. But many fear that more deportations will come from Mexicans and migrants in the third country.
In the absence of widespread deportation, however, some migrants can decide that it is still worthwhile to achieve the USA itself illegally. Ramírez said that migrant smugglers, who are known in Mexico as cojots, are already making this field.
“Cojots encourage people that there is still hope,” he said.