US expands area in Mexico for border asylum applications

When Venezuelan migrant Yuri Carolina Meléndez stepped onto Mexican soil this week, she downloaded the U.S. government app to file an asylum claim.

The CBP One app has been around for a while, but starting Friday, migrants in Mexico’s southernmost states that border Guatemala will be able to request an appointment. Previously, they had to be in central or northern Mexico.

“I have to wait and see if it really works,” Meléndez said as she rested this week with her 16- and 18-year-old daughters under a tree along a border road to the city of Tapachula.

Mexico has asked the U.S. to expand the app’s access to the south in an effort to ease pressure migrants feel to travel farther north, at least to Mexico City. In recent years, the Mexican government has tried to keep migrants in the south further from the U.S. border, but the lack of jobs and housing in southern cities like Tapachula has pushed migrants north.

Mexico hopes that migrants will be less likely to become victims of organized crime if they can wait until they get to the south.

Germín Alemán, a 31-year-old from Honduras who was traveling with his wife and three children, planned to register once they arrived in Tapachula. “We’re going to register here. We’re going to wait for the appointment,” he said as they walked from the border to Tapachula.

Others, however, still felt pressure to move further north. Many migrants have large debts and need to pay them off as quickly as possible. Meléndez, for example, said she planned to keep moving to increase her job prospects.

CBP One has been one of the most impactful measures in U.S. efforts to bring order to the growing demand for U.S. asylum along the southwest border. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 2.4 million migrant encounters along the border.

Since the app launched in January 2023, more than 765,000 people have scheduled appointments to apply for asylum. Immigration is a central issue in the US presidential election.

When the Biden administration temporarily suspended the asylum process for people who crossed the border illegally in June, the app became one of the few ways to apply for asylum. The U.S. processes 1,500 appointments a day.

The number of migrants crossing the U.S. border illegally has fallen significantly since its peak in December 2023. The government says much of the decline is due to Mexico’s enforcement efforts, which include rounding up migrants in the north and sending them back south.

Still, Mexico welcomes the expansion of CBP One.

“That will help us tremendously,” Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena said this month when she announced the expansion was coming. Immigration is a key issue in U.S.-Mexico relations.

But for dozens of non-governmental organizations that stand up for migrants and human rights, there is little to celebrate.

In an open letter to the Mexican government on Thursday, they called CBP One “a violation of international law” because it allows the US to restrict access to its territory for people in need of protection.

The groups argued that many migrants are stuck in Mexico for months, waiting in crowded shelters or camping in unsanitary conditions. While they wait, they are vulnerable to kidnapping, sexual assault, torture and extortion by criminals and authorities, the groups said.

In theory, Mexico’s National Institute of Migration allows migrants with CBP One appointments to travel freely to the U.S. border. But the organizations say authorities are still sometimes detaining migrants and then sending them south to keep them away from the border.

The institute did not respond to a request for comment on these allegations.

In southern Mexico, migrants have always been targeted by smugglers and criminals, but the region was relatively peaceful for the rest of the population. Now the situation has changed. The southern border region is embroiled in a territorial battle between Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, who want to control the routes for smuggling drugs, weapons and migrants. Violence is part of daily life in many border towns.

Among the migrants waiting in the central square of Ciudad Hidalgo, near the Suchiate River that separates Mexico and Guatemala, the question arises whether to wait or continue north.

As a group of migrants debated the answer, money weighed most heavily. The migrants had heard that the chances of finding work were greater in central and northern Mexico, and that money was needed for what could be a months-long wait for an appointment.

“If there are work opportunities, we will stay. If not, we will continue until they give us an appointment,” said Yuleidi Banqué, a 28-year-old Venezuelan who had just arrived in Mexico with her partner and her 7-year-old daughter.

“My daughter is not feeling well. … She is being fed through a feeding tube. We need help,” Banqué said.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, better known as UNHCR, is cautious about the expansion of CBP One.

Giovanni Lepri, the Mexican chief of UNHCR, said it could mean fewer risks for migrants heading north. But he added that dealing with migration requires several measures, “such as stabilizing countries of origin, protection in transit countries and options for regularization and asylum in destination countries.”

For Noemí Ramírez, a 47-year-old woman from El Salvador, the news that she could submit her asylum application in the Mexican state of Chiapas was reason enough to immediately leave for Tapachula with her 19-year-old daughter.

“We’re waiting until we have an appointment. I’m not thinking about going any further,” she said as they walked, worried about the violence they might encounter along the way. “I’m not going to take the risk with my daughter. We’re alone.”

Associated Press journalists Clemente reported from Ciudad Hidalgo and Verza from Mexico City.