Cartel violence drives surge of Mexican asylum-seekers
Cartel violence drives surge of Mexican asylum-seekers to border towns
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-009.jpg[On Oct. 24, 2019, at the El Chaparral port of entry in Mexico, families wait hoping their number is called. A group of migrants gather everyday in the early morning hoping to begin the asylum application process to enter into the U.S. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The situation threatens to unravel the fragile relations forged between the presidents of the United States and Mexico.
By WENDY FRY
NOV. 11, 2019 5 AM
TIJUANA — ]Only 40 numbers stood between Miguel and his family’s turn to ask for asylum in the United States.
Fleeing cartel violence in south Mexico, they have been waiting in Tijuana for five months for their chance to cross.
Since Miguel and his family joined the line, thousands more Mexican asylum-seekers have arrived in Tijuana, as violence to the south intensifies.
There are now approximately 6,500 to 7,000 Mexicans on the wait list in Tijuana to make an initial asylum claim, according to Al Otro Lado, a binational organization that advocates for immigrants’ rights and provides pro-bono legal services to migrants.
The sudden increase in the numbers of Mexican families trying to seek asylum in the United States is prompting concern from immigration experts in both countries about a new border crisis driven by cartel violence in south Mexico.
The situation threatens to unravel the fragile relations forged between the presidents of the United States and Mexico, and their so-far cooperative approach to immigration enforcement.
Both have opposite views on how to best address the driving factor of Mexico’s own northbound immigration.
Speaking recently at a forum at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, José Luis Pérez Canchola, from the Academy of Human Rights, cautioned that officials in Baja California needed to prepare to receive large numbers of Mexicans who will be arriving at the northern border after waves of violence in south Mexico.
“And the problem we are also seeing is that now there are also many Mexicans displaced,” said Pérez. “The rights of national and foreign migrants is a constitutional right, (it) is a human right and (it) must be addressed equally to all.”
Tucked away in his bag, Miguel had evidence to help prove his asylum claim: a police report and news articles documenting his kidnapping at the hands of cartel members.
“It’s very ugly in Michoacán. Right now, we have two groups fighting over territory and they only want their enemies to catch a bullet,” said Miguel, who did not want to use his last name for fear of his safety.“If a person or even a small child is in the way, it does not matter,” he said.
In August, Mexicans reclaimed their place at the top of the list as the largest demographic of unauthorized migration to the United States for the month, surpassing Guatemalans and Hondurans, a border official said.
The sudden rise in Mexican families seeking asylum at the southwestern border is frustrating U.S. federal officials who legally cannot block Mexican nationals with the same strict immigration policies that have kept many Central Americans out of the country, the Post reported.
Overall, for fiscal year 2019, non-Mexicans accounted for 80 percent of apprehensions, marking the fourth consecutive year in which they outnumbered Mexicans, according to the Pew Research Center. However, the number of Mexican family units apprehended at the southwestern border went up 165 percent between fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019, CBP data shows.
When migrants arrive at Mexico’s northern border with the United States, they are usually given a number to wait in line in dangerous border cities before they can approach U.S. immigration officials to make an initial asylum claim.
The process, called metering, is not supposed to apply to Mexican migrants, because it forces them to wait in the same country they are fleeing.
Nevertheless, thousands of Mexicans have been waiting months for processing in about half a dozen border cities, including Tijuana.
A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union has called metering Mexican asylum-seekers illegal.
“The practice of metering has no basis in U.S. law,” said Shaw Drake, policy council for the ACLU Border Rights Center in El Paso. “By turning away a Mexican you’re sending them back into the arms of the country they are fleeing.”
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-016.jpg[On Thursday October 24, 2019, at the El Chaparral port of entry in Mexico, families wait hoping their number is called. A group of migrants gather everyday in the early morning hoping that their number is called to begin the asylum application process to enter into the U.S. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Miguel thought Oct. 24 might finally be his family’s day to cross, but because each number supposedly represents about 10 people, hundreds are in line ahead of his family.
He said he fled Michoacán with his wife, their 8-month old daughter and their 3-year-old son after criminals stormed the bus he was taking to work. He said the cartel members took everyone hostage, robbed him at gunpoint and held him for days, attempting to extract ransom payments from family members.
“It’s an all-out war there between the different groups,” said Miguel, looking nervously at people standing near him in Tijuana, leaning in to whisper at the mere mention of the word “cartel.”
On Oct. 24, Mexican immigration officials called the names of 17 people allowing them to cross into the United States. Of those, 16 were from Mexico and one man was from Cameroon. Miguel and his family were not called, so they returned to the shelter where they have been living in Tijuana, tossing worried glances over their shoulder as they loaded into a church van.
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-006.jpg[At the El Chaparral port of entry in Mexico, a group of migrant wait hoping their number is called on Thursday, October 24, 2019. A group of migrants gather everyday in the early morning hoping that their number is called to begin the asylum application process to enter into the U.S. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The presidents of both the United States and Mexico were propelled into office on promises of change: Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised a softer approach would work in quelling drug cartel violence; while U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration swept him into office in 2016.
Trump has threatened tariffs if Mexico does not get more aggressive at stopping the northbound migrant flow from Central American countries, while López Obrador has criticized the U.S. for firearms being trafficked into Mexico contributing to cartel violence.
Mexico’s rising bloodshed pushed López Obrador into office with his promises that “abrazos, no balazos,” or “hugs, not bullets” would end Mexico’s war against drug lords. But the fallout from Mexico’s failed security strategy are some of the very same factors that drove Miguel and his family, and thousands others, to the Mexico’s northern border with the United States in recent months.
“If you want to hug somebody, hug a family member,” scoffed Miguel, about his president’s security strategy. “They don’t want hugs.”
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-014.jpg[Asylum seekers staying in Mexico are escorted from south of the border through the PedEast crossing at the U.S. Mexico border in San Ysidro, California to begin their asylum application process on Thursday, October 24, 2019. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Mexico is on track to have its most violent year on record with an average of about 90 people killed per day. More than 17,000 people were killed during the first half of this year, which is 10 percent more than the first half of 2018.
Among the most recent litany of terrors from Mexico was Monday’s slaughter of at least nine Americans — including six children — at the hands of cartel gunmen in northern Mexico.
In October, Sinaloa cartel gunmen with automatic weapons went to war with Mexican security forces, torching vehicles and blocking off entrances to the capital city of Culiacán after the arrest of one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons. The violence left at least a dozen people dead. The Mexican federal government was forced to release Ovidio Guzmán to prevent further loss of life.
Just days earlier, a police convoy passing through a small town in Michoacán was ambushed and 14 officers were left dead. The day after that, a gunfight between security forces and armed civilians in Mexico’s southwestern state of Guerrero killed 15 people.
López Obrador has defended his security strategy, explaining “You can’t fight fire with fire.”
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-004.jpg[At the El Chaparral port of entry in Mexico on Thursday, October 24, 2019, two boys pass the time by watching a video on a smartphone as they wait with their parents for their number to possibly be called. The boys are part of larger group of migrants that arrive everyday hoping that their number is called to begin the asylum application process to enter into the U.S. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Both Trump and López Obrador are authoritative, charismatic leaders with an anti-establishment angle to their politics. Both are adept at riling up their base of supporters, who vehemently defend their respective leaders on social media.
And neither one likes being argued with.
Tuesday, López Obrador swatted down a Trump tweet proposing to use U.S. military forces against Mexican drug cartels to “wipe them off the face of the earth.”
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
At his daily morning press conference on Tuesday, López Obrador firmly declined the offer saying “It’s not in agreement with our convictions.”
A seemingly inevitable confrontation between the two has been brewing for weeks.
Until recently, Trump has heaped praise on Mexico’s stepped-up efforts to stop Central American migrants from reaching the U.S. border.
But, with his 2020 election hanging in the balance and one of his key agendas — slowing northbound immigration — threatened by new factors like increased violence in Mexico, the U.S. president isn’t likely to ignore it. And when it comes to hardening his strategy for addressing cartel violence, Mexico’s president isn’t likely to budge.
In October, López Obrador criticized comments that a United States state official made to U.S. Congress about Mexico’s security strategy, calling the official’s comments about Mexico “objectionable” and “in poor taste.”
López Obrador said “officials of other countries should not offer opinions about internal issues that only concern our government.”
He was referring to statements made by Rich Glenn, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, who spoke to Congress on Oct. 30.
Glenn said the Trump administration does not expect Mexico to make progress in the fight against organized crime unless the highest level of the federal government shows a political commitment to do so. He also said that Mexico needs a comprehensive strategy to fight transnational organized crime and it doesn’t have one.
“Imagine if I were to declare that the United States (security) strategy is bad because they allow, without control, the sale of weapons that are brought into Mexico and cause the death of civilians,” said López Obrador, in response, at his morning daily press conference.
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...eekers-007.jpg[At the El Chaparral port of entry in Mexico, a young girl and boy wait at the railing as numbers are called on Thursday, October 24, 2019. A group of migrants gather everyday in the early morning hoping that their number is called to begin the asylum application process to enter into the U.S. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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