Mexican policemen seek asylum in US

New York: When Lieutenant Salvador Hernandez heard his name was on a death list posted by drug gangs in the violence-gripped Mexican border city of Juarez, he knew it was time to skip town.

He had narrowly survived a previous 'hit', injured by three bullets from a would-be assassin's gun, and did not want to try his luck again.

When he fled across the Rio Grande into Texas, however, he sought more than just a hiding place - he also filed a request for asylum with the US authorities. That made him part of an unprecedented new trend: Mexican police officers claiming safe haven across the border in America, because they claim their own colleagues cannot protect them - or might even be trying to kill them.

Mexican journalists, businessmen and elected officials have also placed asylum requests north of the border as violence engulfs their homeland. The American authorities must now decide how to deal with government functionaries who claim that their own state is unable to keep them alive.

The drug wars that have made Mexico as dangerous as Iraq, claiming more than 6,000 lives last year, will dominate the agenda this week when US President Barack Obama visits his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, en route to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

Some 312 Mexicans lodged 'credible fear' asylum requests upon arriving at the American frontier last year, up from 179 in 2007 and just 54 in 2003.

"We are certainly seeing more Mexicans who are seeking safe haven in the US because of drug violence at home," confirmed a spokeswoman for the US Citizenship and Immigration Service.

'Jesus', another police chief from the border war zone, who wants to be known only by his first name for fear of revenge attacks on family and friends, bailed out after his commander was shot dead. He told relatives if he did not leave Mexico, he would be next. "If I go back I will be waiting for death," he said.

Newspaper editor Jorge Aguirre, meanwhile, decided to flee Juarez when he received a death threat in a call to his mobile phone as he was walking to the funeral of a friend and fellow journalist who had been murdered after writing stories critical of the cartels.

Although there is no dispute about the scale of the bloodshed south of the border, the new breed of asylum seekers do not clearly fall into the internationally recognised categories of those fleeing persecution because the state cannot or will not protect them from persecution on grounds of their race, religion, nationality, or political beliefs.

Jeff Joseph, a US immigration lawyer whose firm is handling Jesus's case, gave warning that a lack of flexibility in applying the rules could be lethal for some asylum seekers. "Our government's interpretation of the law is going to cause people to die," he said.

"We are seeing a surge in asylum applications from Mexico, and this clearly reflects a dramatic change where the police are increasingly unable to deal with crime and protect their people."

Aguirre, the journalist, now lives in hiding with his family across the border in El Paso as his asylum request goes through the system. He fears the cartels will track him down.

But when Lieutenant Hernandez discovered he would be held indefinitely in a US immigration detention centre while his plea for refuge was considered, he decided to head back across the border.

"People, especially policemen, just get tired of being in jail," said his El Paso lawyer Carlos Spector, who has himself been the subject of death threats for his work with Mexicans fleeing the cartels.

The rash of asylum requests is highlighting the scale of the security crisis in America's backyard.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009