Register 387,541 orders from 2013 to date

The Mexican government said Thursday that it is the third country in the world that receives the most refugee applications, registering 387,541 requests from 2013 to date and of which 330,960 correspond to the Administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who began his management in December 2018.

“It is one of the phenomena that has broken into this Administration. Since 2021, Mexico is the third country with the highest number of refugee asylum seekers worldwide,” said Alejandro Encinas, Mexican Undersecretary for Human Rights, during the government’s daily conference.

The official stressed that 85.4% of the requests received from 2013 so far correspond to the Government of López Obrador.

Of these requests, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) has recognized 92,319, of which 79,377, 86% of the total, have been during this sexennium.

In addition, he said that the Government of López Obrador has granted a total of more than 1.6 million migratory documents.

In that figure, he highlighted more than 217,000 regional visitor cards; 21,214 permits for border workers, nearly 268,000 humanitarian visas, and the reception of 118,528 migrants by the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) of the United States or “Remain in Mexico”.

It also pointed to more than 414,000 temporary residents and about 269,000 permanent residents, while the rest are refugee applications pending or granted.

Encinas highlighted the openness of the current government by citing that, at the beginning of the six-year term, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), there were 1 million foreigners in the country, of which 70% were US citizens.

“Today we have 1.5 times more people who are making a very important contribution to the development of our country,” he said.

The figures reflect the record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has intercepted more than 2.15 million people at the border with Mexico, so far in fiscal year 2022.

The Mexican government has received criticism for the deployment of more than 20,000 elements of the Armed Forces on the northern and southern borders for migratory tasks, but President López Obrador defended on Thursday that in Mexico “there is no xenophobia.”