Mexico City, Mexico — Over 118,000 migrants applied for refugee status in Mexico last year. Of those, Hondurans lead way. On Tuesday, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance reported that during 2022, Mexico received 118,478 migrant petitions for refugee status.
The agency said it was the second highest after Mexico received 131,488 refugee status requests in 2021. That year, Mexico received the most requests from Haitians.
“This is the second largest number of applicants registered in Mexico, only below the record number in 2021. Second consecutive year with more than 100,000 applicants,” reported Andrés Ramírez Silva who heads the Commission.
Of the requests in 2022, more than 31,000 were from Hondurans. Other nationalities to apply included 18,087 from Cuba and 17,068 from Haiti. Those request figures were followed by 14,823 from Venezuela and 8,971 from Nicaragua.
Other countries in the top 10 to apply included El Salvador (7,803), Guatemala (5,271), Brazil (2,592), Colombia (2,482) and Dominican Republic (1,421).
La Comar also reported that the immigration office that received the most requests was Chiapas. Migration has increased in Mexico since October 2018 when caravans of thousands, mostly Central Americans, began to enter Mexico to cross the country to the U.S. border. The arrival of migrants into Mexico has continued despite the pandemic and imposed restrictions.
