Mexico sees rise in both refugees and internal displacement

Mexico is among the top five in the world for asylum seeker applications

Tánaiste Micheál Martin visits the Cafemin Migration Centre, where 600 people live in crowded conditions. 

At a crowded migration centre in Mexico City, families sleep on mats on the floor of a former gym.

While the building is only meant to accommodate 100 people, there are currently 600 people living in the crowded facility.

This is the Cafemin Migration Centre, which is located in Gustavo A Madero near the famous Basilica de Guadalupe.

While it had initially been opened in 2012 to host female refugees, in recent years it has opened its doors to everyone seeking refuge.

Across the main courtyard of the old school building, hundreds of children play while clothes are being handed out by people staffing the centre.

Cooking is carried out by the refugees, with one of the cooks being a young 21-year-old man from Honduras, who arrived at the centre by himself at age 18.

Like many countries in the world, migration into Mexico has increased significantly in recent years, with the country among the top five in the world for asylum seekers, shows data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In 2023 alone, 140,812 asylum seekers entered the country. In the last three years, 390,768 asylum applications have been lodged by those entering the country.

In Ireland, the latest figures from the International Protection Office show that there were 13,277 applications for asylum in 2023. However, this does not include the number of Ukrainians — who have temporary protection under EU law — which stands at 93,050 as of September 2023 since the war began.

These figures are unlikely to be the true figures for migration into the country due to the work of cartels and people smugglers bringing people in through underground routes, which are much more dangerous.

It is estimated that people-smuggling cartels can make $8bn-$10bn (€7.3bn-€9.1bn) a year by bringing people into Mexico.

The primary migration flows into Mexico are coming from the south, from countries such as Venezuela, Honduras, and Ecuador.

UN officials have also reported people coming from Asia and Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Internally displaced

Alongside inward flows of migration, a significant number of Mexicans are seeking to leave the country and access the US through their northern border. This means people are becoming internally displaced as they move north to camps on the border.

While no official statistics are kept by the Mexican authorities, it is estimated by the UNHCR that around 400,000 people are internally displaced in Mexico.

As in most countries, people are entitled to claim asylum in Mexico and are meant to have their claims dealt with within 45 to 100 days.

However, since the pandemic and with the rapid increase in people claiming asylum, this target is rarely met.

Unlike in Ireland, any asylum seeker in Mexico is permitted to work immediately while their application is being processed.

In Ireland, asylum seekers only become eligible to work after six months while waiting for their application to be processed.

Those who get work can typically be found in the construction industry, but there are also concerns from the UNHCR that people can end up in more exploitative work through the cartels.