Mexico seeks to curb ‘abuse’ of asylum system by migrants

Mexico’s overwhelmed asylum agency is strengthening efforts to weed out high numbers of applicants who “abuse” the system while passing through Mexico to reach the United States, Mexico’s top asylum official said on Monday.
Mexico has the world’s third highest number of asylum applications after the United States and Germany, reflecting growing numbers of refugee seekers that have strained resources at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR).
Once migrants request asylum, they are exempt from deportation and are eligible to seek work, motivating many to file applications even without the intent to stay in Mexico, said Andres Ramirez, COMAR’s director.
“It’s an abuse of the asylum system,” he told reporters at COMAR’s busy Mexico City office. “Treating COMAR like a kind of travel agency.”
The agency recently began a pilot in the southern city of Tapachula near the Guatemala border, where it has its biggest load of applicants, geared at quickly rejecting cases that do not merit asylum, Ramirez added.