José Diaz Briseño / Reform Agency
Thursday, May 11, 2023 | 20:14
Washington DC.- Some regions of Mexico offer adequate security and employment conditions that migrants from third countries should consider as residence before seeking asylum in the United States, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Thursday.
Just a few hours after the Biden Administration unveiled a new rule that prohibits migrants who have transited through other countries where they may have applied for asylum from seeking asylum in the US, Secretary Blinken cited Mexico as an example of a country that migrants must leverage.
“In Mexico, for example, right now, there is a labor shortage in parts of the country, which they are interested in satisfying through legal migration. So, if we can support that, that would be an opportunity for those people.” Blinken said in an interview with PBS public television.
Questioned directly by the presenter Amna Nawaz about why he recommended Mexico as a safe country for asylum seekers considering its high homicide rates, Secretary Blinken assured that Mexico is a country with different regions with different security situations.
“It’s like you know it’s a large country with big differences depending on where you are in the country. So a lot depends on what part of the country we’re talking about,” Blinken said.
The presenter Nawaz questioned Blinken for citing Mexico as a safe country for migrants, assuring that the State Department itself routinely issues alerts about the security of different regions of Mexico and recalled that the homicide rate is 4 times higher than that of us.
“We are working very closely with Mexico, and we have been helping them strengthen their own asylum system for some time,” Blinken said, insisting that Mexico is an opportunity for refuge.
Blinken applauded the cooperation of the Government of Mexico following the end of Title 42 tonight; In particular, Blinken boasted of the agreement to allow the return of migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to its territory after being deported from the US under Title 8 of its Immigration Law.
Blinken’s statements occur at the time that the US terminates the policy of expulsion of migrants to Mexican territory under the so-called Title 42; Just today, the Biden Administration published the new ban on those seeking asylum at the border without having previously applied in other countries.
“To the extent that someone is going through a country where there is an opportunity to seek asylum and they have not taken advantage of that opportunity, we are telling them ‘you have to do it,'” Blinken explained in his PBS interview, assuring that the US is helping with help. to various countries of the American continent.
After the publication of the new rule to prohibit access to asylum in the US for those migrants who have transited through other countries, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch recalled the frequent abuses that migrants have reported in Mexico, including kidnappings, rapes and extortion.
The State Department itself places six States of Mexico in its highest alert category and currently recommends not traveling to them (Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas); Also, the US government recommends reconsidering not traveling to seven other states.
