Mexican Drug Wars Force Mexicans to Claim Asylum in US

The UK Telegraph on Mexicans seeking asylum:

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 - a close ally of Washington - 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 President Barack Obama visits his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, en route to the Summit of the Americans 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. Another 2,231 asked for asylum after entering the US, nearly double the number in 2006.

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.

The new rash of asylum requests are highlighting the scale of the security crisis in America's immediate backyard. For Mr Obama, the horrific drug wars are a graphic reminder of the importance of narcotics policy in the Western hemisphere, and which has long a barometer of US relations with the region.