Colombians, among the largest asylum seekers in Spain

Venezuelans and Colombians continue to lead applications for international protection in Spain. This was revealed by the report 'More than figuras', presented this Tuesday by the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), responsible for defending the rights of refugees, migrants or those at risk of social exclusion.

Of the 65,404 applications submitted, 15,995 were from Venezuela, while 11,567 were from Colombia. As the report explained, this difference is due to the fact that Venezuelans are more likely to receive asylum than Colombians for humanitarian reasons.

However, the options for receiving this international benefit remain small in all cases. CAER reported that last year there were 69,891 resolutions on pending applications in Spain, of which only 7,371 were favorable. This translates into just over 10% of positive results.

Most successful resolutions came about because citizens of these nationalities were recognized as refugees (5,354), being persecuted in their countries for various reasons. And the rest because they had subsidiary protection (2.017), so that, without receiving refugee status, they obtained protection against the risk to their lives if they return to their country.

In addition to these are the 12,983 granted for humanitarian reasons, represented in a temporary residence permit in Spain in certain cases. This is the situation for almost 99% of applicants from Venezuela, but also from Colombia or Peru, among other countries, as detailed in the analysis.

Regarding negative aspects, the agency specified that there are several countries in Latin America with low chances of approval “despite the high rates of violence that many people suffer.” That is the picture of nations such as Peru, with almost 97 percent of requests denied, Colombia (almost 94 percent), El Salvador (93.5 percent), Honduras (about 88 percent) and Nicaragua (79.5 percent).

CAER's Director of Policies and Campaigns, Paloma Faviares, indicated that the entity's objective is to be able to speed up the procedures more and more: “Our country continues to have a major pending subject to expedite these resolutions in order to meet the legal deadlines, guaranteeing an individualized study of cases and avoiding at all times when standard criteria are applied according to nationalities”.

In a statement, Migration Colombia explained that the deportations have worked in coordination with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He also indicated that every month there is a trip called 'flight of deportees', in which about 90 people arrive on average.

The US border patrol said that, between October 2019 and February 2022, the migration flow increased by more than 20,000 percent: from 42 monthly detainees at the end of 2019 to around 9,600 at the beginning of this period.

“After talks with the Colombian government, in March 2022, DHS began repatriating Colombian citizens to Colombia in accordance with the Title 42 public health order,” a Department of Security (DHS) official told AFP.

It should be recalled that the former Republican President, Donald Trump, imposed Title 42, which allows the expulsion of undocumented migrants, claiming that they may be carriers of covid-19. Now, with Joe Biden's administration, the placement of minors in detention centers was prohibited, for example, while the legal situation was resolved.

*With information from EFE

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