SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Applications for political asylum in Mexico are taking up to two years for a resolution, according to Darinka Carballo, director of the Gaia Migrant Foundation in Baja California.
Carballo says immigration policies in Mexico “criminalize migrants” delaying the process.
“Their motives aren’t considered to be true,” Carballo said. “The process is delayed due to the institutional biases in place.”
She is asking the National Human Rights Commission, public defenders’ groups in Mexico, and that country’s Institute of Migration to speed up the process.
“We’re not asking for charity, we’re not asking for favors, we’re simply asking that we follow closely with federal statutes and our own constitution.”
For decades, Mexico has been seen as a country for migrants in transit. Carballo says this perception needs to change as many migrants actually want to live and prosper in Mexico.
She said the most prevalent demographic group of migrants includes people from Haiti, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Carballo said another reason for the slow asylum process is that many migrants haven’t secured proper documentation to legally migrate to Mexico, making it harder to identify them and figure out what their human and legal rights are.
“When families and foreigners arrive in Mexico, many don’t have their documents, this makes them more vulnerable to red tape and delays,” she said.
According to Carballo, U.S. policies, which force Mexico to take in deported migrants, makes it difficult to process and determine who really wants asylum in Mexico.
The United Nations Refugee Agency says 78,906 asylum applications by refugees and migrants were received in Mexico last year. Figures for 2025 have not been released.
According to UNHCR, most came from Honduras, Cuba and Haiti with total of 31,922 decisions rendered on initial applications, 78 percent of which were answered positively.
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