Mexico said it received 131,448 asylum applications in 2021, the country’s national refugee care agency said.
The number of applications nearly doubled the record set in 2019, Andres Ramirez Silva, the general coordinator of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) said on Twitter.
“That year, Mexico received 70,341 applications’’.
The increase came as migrants faced greater obstacles to reach the United States, which was the ultimate goal for most of them.
Comar statistics showed the majority of asylum applicants were Haitians, followed by Hondurans and Cubans, as well as Venezuelans and people from other Central American countries.
The U.S. Government in 2021 deported thousands of Haitians who had settled in a makeshift camp in southern Texas, a deterrent that made thousands more who intended to cross decide to remain in Mexico.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration was ordered by the courts to reinstate the so-called “Remain in Mexico’’ policy of his predecessor Donald Trump.
The asylum seekers were forced to wait in Mexico until it was their turn to present their cases in the U.S., something that can take months and even years.
