By Jorge Antonio Rocha
MEXICO CITY (AA) – More than 1.74 million migrants have taken refuge in Mexico during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's term, the National Migration Institute (INM) said Monday.
According to the immigration authority, the 1,742,365 foreigners who entered Mexican territory as migrants were granted documents allowing them to stay legally, with 513,063 being granted asylum due to humanitarian concerns.
President Lopez Obrador, also known by his initials AMLO, promised to address the root causes of migration in the region and to provide humane care to migrants transiting through Mexico.
The INM detailed that in the six years of his administration, 415,584 humanitarian visas were issued, a document that guarantees free transit through the country, and 97,479 permanent residence visas were granted due to recognition of refugee status or as protection.
The COVID-19 pandemic and stringent US immigration policies have added to the immigration applications in Mexico.
Measures such as the now-repealed Title 42, which was instituted by then US President Donald Trump during the pandemic, led to the immediate expulsion of more than 2 million migrants to Mexican territory.
The program allowed US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to prohibit the entry of people who potentially posed a health risk by being subject to previously announced travel restrictions or by unlawfully entering the country to bypass health-screening measures.
Pressure from the US has resulted in Mexico becoming a recipient country for migrants expelled by authorities at the US border. Although the INM assured that all processes are carried out with "full respect for the rights of nationals and foreigners," AMLO's administration has been harshly criticized for its treatment of migrants.
The boom in migration rates and AMLO's migration policy, which relies heavily on the military, has resulted in abuses of authority and even deaths of migrants.
Among the most controversial cases is a fire in March last year at a migrant detention center in the border city of Ciudad Juarez in northwestern Mexico, where 40 migrants died after guards refused to release them as the fire spread.
However, AMLO's migration policy has yielded results, as there has been a decrease of almost 30% in migrant encounters from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala at the US border, according to figures from the CBP.