Mexico said the applications for refugee requests tripled in 2021

In the face of a huge surge of people destined for the United States, applications for refugee status in Mexico have approximately tripled this year compared to 2020, according to the administration.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters on Tuesday that the country has received 123,187 petitions in 2021, up from 41,230 the previous year.

According to Ebrard, the government and the UN were assisting the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance in dealing with a backlog of applications, but the organisation required more employees and resources.

According to Ebrard, Mexico has a reasonably uncomplicated asylum process that grants more than 95 percent of applicants.

Thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing poverty and violence have arrived in Mexico in recent months, many of whom are requesting asylum while awaiting a chance to enter the United States.

Undocumented migrants and refugees are frequently hidden in trucks transporting them from Guatemala to Mexico, from which they travel north to the US border.

A terrible road accident earlier this month killed 56 people, largely asylum seekers from Guatemala, after the vehicle transporting them toppled, highlighting the dangers they confront.

The episode brought attention to the perils people endure on the way to the US border, frequently at the hands of coyotes, or human traffickers.

Hundreds of asylum seekers have perished in Mexico as a result of violence or car accidents in the last decade, while the US has experienced an unprecedented spike in the number of people attempting to reach its southern border this year.

The majority of the asylum applicants come from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which are afflicted by significant gang violence and corruption, as well as high rates of poverty and unemployment, among other problems.

Dominga Tiniguar, who lives in the Guatemalan community of Xepol, lost her son in the Mexican plane disaster on December 9. He was a farmworker who intended to work in the United States for a while before returning to Guatemala.

"He was going to Chicago to work so he could build a house here in Xepol and buy some land," Tiniguar said, holding a photo of her son, Elias Salvador Mateo Tiniguar, to the Reuters news agency.