BORDER VIOLENCE BRINGS ASYLUM POLICY INTO QUESTION

Journalist Emilio Gutierrez Soto fled Mexico in 2008, after receiving
death threats believed to stem from military personnel, according to
media reports. At a port of entry in western Texas, Soto voluntarily
approached border agents seeking asylum, but for the next seven
months, he was confined to immigration detention in El Paso.

Soto is among the estimated tens of thousands of Mexican nationals,
including many journalists, officials and business leaders, who have
relocated to the United States since Mexican President Felipe
Calderon launched a sweeping offensive against drug organizations in
2006. But because the legal standards of asylum are so high - and
some researchers say even outdated - many, like Soto, face
devastating challenges when it comes to reaching a safe haven in the
United States.

The recent Mexican migration spurred by the drug violence, some
experts predict, will push the need for immigration reform and
precipitate a reconsideration of U.S. standards for asylum overtime.

"Bringing the visa system into sync with the U.S. market demand
(through immigration reform) will ease the pressure from illegal
immigration," said Susan Ginsburg, a nonresident fellow of the
Migration Policy Institute. "We will then have more latitude to
adjust the asylum system to deal with 21st century
asylum-seekers."

Asylum petitioners must currently demonstrate they have a "credible
fear of persecution" in their country because of their race,
ethnicity, religion, political views or social group, according to
the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

But few people seeking to flee the violence in Mexico win cases of
asylum, even as many are becoming informants for U.S. officials, said
Howard Campbell, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas
at El Paso.

"There are thousands of people who have the same story and whose
story is legitimate," he said.

When Calderon initiated the battle against drug cartels in 2006, for
instance, the United States received 2,793 asylum petitions from
Mexico and 3,042 the following year - only 49, or less than 2
percent, were granted status each year, according to data compiled
from U.S. immigration courts by the Executive Office for Immigration
Review under the U.S. Department of Justice.

The number of Mexican asylum applications granted has steadily
increased but is a minimal percentage of the multitude. In 2008, 72,
or about 2 percent, out of the 3,459 petitions received were
approved, while in 2009, 62, or about 2.2 percent, of 2,816
applications were granted asylum status.

The reason so many petitions are rejected is that asylum standards
were set in an older time period, Ginsburg said. Most people who have
qualified for the status have fled communist regimes, dictatorships
and civil wars - not criminal violence or genuine fear of violent
death at the hands of drug gangs.

"We are used to seeing the need for protection from governments and
states, and this (the migration we are seeing now) is a fear of
persecution from nonstate actors, criminal gangs that have taken
control of areas of the country.

"On the one hand, you do not want to provide a completely open door.
On the other hand, the standards we have now reflect an older era."