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TIJUANA, Dec. 28 (AP) Albert Rivera knows how dangerous Mexico can be: He sometimes wears a bulletproof vest around the bright yellow complex of buildings he built, It is one of the largest immigrant shelters in the United States.
His phone stored more evidence in the form of stomach-churning videos showing gangs dispatching immigrants warning of the consequences of not complying with demands.
The images include severed limbs thrown in a pile, a decapitated head thrown into a vat of steaming liquid, and a woman wriggling as her head is sawed off.
But across town from the Agape Mision Mundial sanctuary, many immigrants welcome the opportunity to settle here.
That’s where the Mexican asylum office greets foreigners, who consider the border city of Tijuana a relatively safe place to live with plenty of job opportunities.
This jarring contrast illustrates Mexico’s paradoxical status.
In this country, violence and inequality drive many to seek a better life in America.
For others, it offers a measure of peace and prosperity beyond what their hometowns can offer.
Mexico’s safe and robust asylum system relieves pressure on the United States, which is increasingly looking to other governments to manage immigration.
A ruling issued Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily preserved restrictions on asylum during the pandemic.
Mexico is the world’s third most popular destination for asylum seekers in 2021, after the United States and Germany, according to United Nations data.
In 2021, the number of asylum applicants will be just below the all-time high of 131,400, led by Hondurans, Cubans and Haitians.
Juan Pablo Sanchez, 24, follows others who have left Colombia over the past two years after running into financial trouble as organizers of cultural events.
For him, Tijuana is a better option than the United States.
He pays $250 a month in rent, far less than the $1,800 a friend paid for a similar place in Illinois.
Wages are lower in Mexico, but jobs are plentiful, including in export-driven manufacturing plants.
Lower expenses mean more money to send his wife and stepson to Pereira, a coffee-growing city in the foothills of the Andes.
“I saw (my work) come to fruition in Colombia,” he said after riding his motorbike to the Tijuana asylum office. “Earning a living in America is precarious.”
From January to November, Mexico approved 61 percent of asylum claims, with at least 90 percent going to Hondurans and Venezuelans. The Cubans and Haitians have been far less successful.
For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the U.S. appropriation rate was 46%. The figure is lower than Mexico’s rate but up from 27 percent two years ago, when former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration sharply limited relief for gang and family victims. Violence, according to data from the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Mexico abides by the Cartagena Declaration, which promises a safe haven for anyone threatened by “generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflict, massive violations of human rights, or other serious public disturbances.”
The United States adheres to a narrower definition that requires a person to be a separate target for limited reasons, as articulated in the UN Refugee Convention.
Mexico’s relatively lax standards had little effect at Rivera’s sanctuary, where about 500 guests rarely ventured out of the nearby store.
The Puerto Rican pastor, who grew up in Los Angeles, ran a nursing home in Tijuana for drug rehab before converting it into an immigrant shelter in 2018.
He said the gunman had stormed inside looking for the woman who was hiding elsewhere.
Maria Rosario Blanco, 41, was riding on the back of his father’s motorcycle when he arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, in 2019 with her sister and 8-year-old grandnephew On the road, an assailant shot and killed his father.
A year later, Blanco’s nephew was killed while working in his barber shop. When floods destroyed their home, the family finally left.
Even after she moved to another part of Honduras and the town of Palenque in southern Mexico, known for its Mayan ruins, gangs regularly threatened to kill or kidnap her, Blanco said. She said she won’t feel safe until she arrives in the U.S., where she hopes to settle in a Chicago suburb with a man she met through church.
“Gangs are everywhere,” she said, describing the fear of Mexico. She said Hondurans were easy targets for attackers because of the way they spoke.
A Mexican woman, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said her troubles started when a brother joined a gang when his family was threatened, but they killed him anyway.
Then her 15-year-old son joins the gang to save his family. They didn’t know where he was, but were sent a photo of him holding an assault rifle.
“The new rule is that people are obliged to join” the gang, she said.
“It’s okay if you refuse. They’ll kill you anyway.”
The gang burned down their house in a small village in Michoacan state, stole their farmland and threatened to kill the family if her husband and 12-year-old son did not join.
They want an exemption from the U.S. asylum ban, which was upheld for at least several months in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision Tuesday.
The justices will hear arguments in February on the so-called Section 42 mandate, which will remain in effect until they decide on the case.
Migrants have been denied asylum under Article 42 2.5 million times since March 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
There are some exceptions for people who are considered particularly vulnerable in Mexico.
In anticipation of the imminent end of Title 42, some supporters expect a Biden administration to reinstate a Trump policy — temporarily blocked in court — if non-Mexicans do not first visit countries they have traveled to, such as Mexico. application, they are denied asylum.
Maureen Meyer, vice president of the Washington office for Latin America programs, said Mexico would likely agree to take lesser steps, such as increasing law enforcement within its borders or admitting some migrants ordered to leave the United States.
Under article 42, Mexico has received migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and, most recently, Venezuela, as well as from Mexico.
Meyer said that while some asylum seekers in Mexico are granted permission to travel within the country, they generally must remain in the state they applied for.
Seven in 10 applicants apply in the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, where there are few job opportunities.
Job opportunities are plentiful in Tijuana, but the office of the Mexican Refugee Aid Committee in the city is relatively small. One Venezuelan who visited the office after being deported from the US under Article 42 said Mexico was “10 times better” than at home.
Efrén González, director of the commission’s Tijuana office, said the migrants arrived exhausted. “They stopped to plan their next move, and I think Tijuana is a great place to do that.” (AP)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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