While much attention has been paid to Central American asylum seekers, many Mexicans are also coming to the U.S. to seek asylum from cartel-related violence, only to encounter numerous obstacles to refuge. In addition, the conflicts and crime they flee—fueled by the drug trade—are influenced in large part by U.S. markets and policies, and exacerbated by insecurity, corruption, and misguided strategies in their own country. Here is the history and current situation they are up against.
The opioid epidemic in the U.S. has ravaged communities across the country, and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. It has also caused devastation and death in cities, towns, and rural areas across Mexico, via the violence of the drug trade, particularly in the southwestern states of Guerrero and Michoacán, a hub of the country’s opium poppy plantations, heroin and synthetic drug production, and cocaine trade routes from South America. The Mexican government, often in partnership with U.S., has developed some programs to fight the drug cartels and curtail related crime through police action and military deployments, though this has failed, spurring the formation of smaller gangs and contributing to heightened violence. And some Mexican authorities have been found to contribute to the violence through collusion with criminal elements.
The ongoing crisis has caused thousands of Mexicans to flee their homes in recent years, and seek asylum in the U.S., where family ties or previous work stints offer some level of comfort to rebuild their lives. Yet though Mexicans are now seeking asylum in the highest numbers ever, they also experience the highest denial rate of any nationality—88% (from FY2012–FY2017, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse).
REASONS FOR MIGRATION: In the past and even today, most Mexican migrants cite economic opportunity as the main motivation for migration. However, this can still mean that violence is a contributing factor—it is the second most cited reason—and the number of Mexican migrants who indicate that violence is their primary reason for migration has grown sharply. Of approximately 11.000 migrants served by the KBI in 2018, 9,956 were Mexican nationals; of these individuals, 3.08% of men (or 267) and 15.26% of women (or 196) indicated that violence was their main reason for crossing into the U.S.
The shift is largely due to the expansion of cartel and gang activity that has resulted in waves of crime suffered by Mexican citizens in regions where the drug trade has taken over. In 2017, homicides in Mexico totaled 25,339, unprecedented in recent history, but that number was surpassed in 2018 when over 28,000 homicides were recorded. In Guerrero (population about 3.5 million), there were 2,016 homicides in 2015, increasing to 2,318 in 2017; during that same period, homicides rose from 777 to 1,277 in Michoacán (population approximately 4.5 million). These state populations are lass than half that of New York City, and experts estimate that one-third to one-half of murders are linked to criminal organizations.
For residents in the path of cartel activity, life has changed markedly—previously lively zócalos empty at nightfall, families retreat behind locked doors—and no one is safe. As cartels have splintered and diversified, extortion of business owners, kidnappings, human smuggling, and theft have become regular occurrences. For example, if someone fails to remit the required quota (monthly payment to the gang or cartel), members resort to threats, abduction, or murder to send a message to the community, and other family members are at risk. Schools and transportation service companies frequently close because teachers or drivers have been threatened. Members of cartels and gangs post planned hits on social media sites, like Facebook and WhatsApp, using nicknames and slang to convey their intentions. Fears, threats, violence, and persecution similar to those reported by Central American asylum seekers are now becoming commonplace in areas of Mexico, accounting for a tripling of Mexican asylum seekers since 2014 and an 18-fold increase since 2007.
ROOTS OF THE VIOLENCE: The drug trade is a highly profitable industry, operating (in the Western hemisphere) mostly in areas of Latin America that are poverty-ridden, land-rich, and poorly policed. It feeds on ever-growing North American demand, and earns tens of billions for the criminal organizations that traffic in heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. In the past, four major cartels monopolized these international networks, but over the past decade, the Mexican government, with U.S. assistance, has broken their domination of these markets by capturing or killing 25 of the 37 top crime bosses—what is known as the “kingpin” strategy or cartel decapitation.
Over time, this approach has only intensified the violence by fragmenting the previous multinational, big-business structure of the drug trade into numerous smaller operations as members vie for leadership and a piece of the drug-trafficking pie. The incentives are considerable—a kilo of opium (the raw material for heroin) brings USD$800 and in 2015, 93% of the heroin seized in the U.S. was produced in Mexico (Congressional Research Service). Moreover, these smaller gangs have diversified into other crimes, such as the aforementioned extortion and kidnapping as well as human smuggling, auto theft, oil siphoning, and retail drug sales. In Guerrero, where once a single cartel exerted its control—the Beltrán Leyva organization, a branch of the notorious Sinaloa cartel—there are now at least 50 criminal groups operating, according to the state’s attorney general, and producing 50–70% of the heroin produced in Mexico.
Further, criminal impunity and corruption at every level of law enforcement and government are rampant. In 1997, the impunity rate was 78.2% and in 2014, it was 78.6%, showing no improvement in nearly two decades. Four out of five homicides go unsolved, and only 2% of these cases result in arrest and indictment (compared to two-thirds in the U.S.). Municipal and federal police, the military, and government officials take bribes, look the other way, and at times are complicit in criminal activity if not outright collaborators. In 2014, the account of 43 protesting students from a teaching college in Iguala, Guerrero—attacked and abducted by the police, and turned over to and presumed killed by a local drug gang, with army knowledge and at the direction of the mayor—horrified the world, and made the reach of government corruption and collaboration painfully clear. In the end, no alleged perpetrators were held accountable.
It is no wonder, then, that citizens are reluctant to report crimes for fear of threats, extortion, or death from cartel operatives or corrupt officials, which can have negative implications should a victim mount an asylum case in the U.S. at some future point. (Police reports provide important evidence in such cases.) Police ineffectiveness and the lack of justice related to impunity also contribute to the distrust. According to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 92% of crimes in Mexico go unreported. Instead, civilian militias (autodefensas) have cropped up in an attempt to stave off crime in the first place, offer protection to their communities, and impose order, but they have had a destabilizing effect, adding to the violence rather than stopping it.
INEFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: Since 2006, an estimated 200,000 people have been killed or disappeared in the deadly sweep of the drug wars. In response, the Mexican government has declared its own “war on drugs,” a militarized effort with U.S. backing that has focused on enforcement, crackdowns, and reducing the drug supply. President Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) instituted the militarization, deploying tens of thousands of army officers and marines to supplement or replace local police and implement the kingpin strategy. As mentioned earlier, this resulted in more violence and homicides, and is now seen as a failure. His successor, President Enrique Peña Nieto, (2012–2018), emphasized the protection of civilians more than removing kingpins, but still relied on a military approach, creating a new national police force of several thousand; initially, homicides declined, but by the end of his term, Mexico experienced its highest annual murder rate in recent decades amid the fallout of cartel fragmentation and feuds over turf and trade routes.
Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (know as AMLO), has promised a new direction, introducing his Plan for National Peace and Security three weeks before his December 1, 2018 inauguration. It outlines some reforms, like a peace and reconciliation process and partial amnesty for low-level criminals, but it continues the hardline mistakes of AMLO’s predecessors in instituting a National Guard to be staffed, trained, and led by military officials. If he succeeds in adding a constitutional amendment to back this force, military intervention will become a permanent fixture in the country’s “war on drugs.”
There is no question that Mexico has a police shortage due to low pay, poor benefits, and inherent dangers. But using the military, or military-like substitutes, introduces human rights concerns—the Mexican military has been implicated in torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, fomenting more fear and violence in certain regions (Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). And the overwhelming focus on enforcement and military troops (essentially, attempting to reduce the supply of drugs) neglects the importance and effectiveness of community-based programs at the local level to reduce the demand.
U.S. IMPACT: It is, in fact, U.S. demand for opiates (including prescription drugs) that is a major driver of Mexico’s increased cultivation of poppies for heroin and synthetic drugs, like fentanyl (30–50 times more powerful than heroin). From 2007–2014, the number of Americans reporting heroin use nearly tripled to 435,000 (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration). This epidemic—essentially, an expanded “marketplace” for drug traffickers—syncs up with the surge of Mexican heroin production slated for the U.S., which was less than 10% in 2003 (when Colombia was the main supplier), but over 90% in 2016. Looked at from the Mexican side, the country’s poppy production has increased more than 800% in the last ten years. Meanwhile, marijuana production has slowed with the legalization of the drug’s sale, use, and production in several U.S. states.
Another marketplace impacts the drug trade and criminal activity in Mexico—gun sales. Despite Mexico’s fairly strict gun-control laws—a Mexico City army base is the only place in the country to buy guns legally, a permit takes months to obtain, and purchases are limited to one gun per buyer—it is fairly easy for criminals to arm themselves or maintain an arsenal. An average of 235,000 guns from the U.S., often purchased legally, are smuggled into Mexico each year (University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute and the Brazil-based Igarape Institute). According to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, approximately 70% of the guns recovered by Mexican law enforcement from 2011 to 2016 were originally purchased from legal dealers in the U.S.
Finally, there is the U.S. support of Mexico’s enforcement-oriented approach to combatting drug traffickers. The Mérida Initiative (2007) codified a partnership between the two countries with the U.S. allocating $100 million/year to train police and bolster the prison system in Mexico. In addition, the Mexican government follows the U.S. lead in various policy areas, such as the formulation of the failed kingpin strategy and the treatment of addiction as a criminal issue (with punitive repercussions) rather than the public health issue it is.
THE ASYLUM PROCESS FOR MEXICANS: This history and current scenario has resulted in a record number of Mexicans attempting to seek asylum in the U.S.—10,923 in 2018—but only 13% of Mexican applicants won their cases, a lower rate of success than for Central American applicants. Seeking asylum is extraordinarily complicated for Mexicans—even beyond the usual difficulties—because the 1951 Refugee Convention was conceived to protect people from persecution, such as ethnic cleansing, not generalized violence. Rather than just showing that their lives are at risk, asylum seekers must prove that they are threatened because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Mexican applicants who are fleeing cartel violence must also demonstrate that their government is unwilling or unable to protect them from these non-state perpetrators of violence. Some cases apply the social-group criteria to the applicant’s family, defining it as a persecuted group, with familial relationship constituting membership in that group, but the new Attorney General has announced that he may reconsider whether claims in that category qualify.
There are other particular obstacles that Mexican applicants face. Compiling evidence, such as police reports or proof of repeated requests for investigations, is problematic because, as has been demonstrated earlier, contacting the authorities can be useless or dangerous. Applicants must often explain why they didn’t relocate within Mexico to escape threats; this is usually impossible due to the extensive reach of organized crime, but nevertheless, they must offer evidence to show the existing dangers across a country three times the size of Texas. They must also overcome the strong cultural perception that Mexicans migrate for economic reasons, rather than to flee violence, and the view that a country with so many vacation destinations is also home to a vast network of cartel and gang violence. And as with all asylum cases, legal representation is key for success, but because Mexican asylum applicants are confronted with extra challenges, lawyers are reluctant to represent them, further reducing the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Finally, Mexico’s shared border with the U.S. makes it easy to deport Mexicans who wish to seek asylum before they’ve been informed of their rights and the process, or questioned about their fear; sometimes their expressions of fear are dismissed or ignored. These expedited removals happen at the discretion of immigration officers, who are not trained to make credible fear determinations (that is the purview of asylum officers), and improperly bypass immigration court and the chance for an applicant’s case to be heard by an immigration judge. A 2016 report from the U.S. Commission of International Freedom (USCIRF) documented instances of expedited removals, and confirmed the KBI’s findings in this area. From November 2015 to August 2016, the KBI filed ten complaints on behalf of individuals who expressed fear of returning to Mexico, but instead of being given the opportunity to speak with an asylum officer, they were summarily deported. Based on KBI statistics, about 40 Mexican individuals who expressed violence as their primary reason for migration were deported each month of that period.
CONCLUSION: The Trump administration has made the deterrence of asylum seekers, and migrants overall, a main policy goal. Currently, asylum seekers must sign up to see an immigration officer, and wait days or weeks until their number is called, a process called metering, which places an already vulnerable population at greater risk.
The KBI continues to advocate on behalf of asylum seekers, and the KBI/Florence Project legal fellow is assigned to work with Mexican applicants in order to strengthen their cases, achieve successful outcomes, and advance asylum law. The 2017 KBI Annual Report featured a story of two brothers from Guerrero, Jorge and Felipe, who were repeatedly thwarted in their asylum attempts and detained in separate U.S. states until our legal fellow intervened to facilitate their reunification with family in Arizona and set their cases on track.
There are ways to help the KBI in this advocacy work. Contact your congressional leaders to let them know you support anti-corruption efforts in Mexico. Investigate the local drug policy in your community, and support addiction treatment programs in your area. These actions can help turn the tide on an urgent situation that is claiming lives on both sides of the border. No one deserves to be exploited by the drug trade; no one deserves to die because governments failed to protect them or offer them refuge.