Mexican Journalists Flee Drug War to Seek Asylum in the United States

Mexican journalists, reporting and opining on the drug-related violence in Mexico, have become a prime target for the warring cartels.

NPR recently reported that the war has claimed more than 28,000 lives. And more than thirty reporters have been killed or disappeared since 2006. In response, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced a series of measures designed to protect journalists covering the country's drug war.

Despite Calderon's attention, journalists are fleeing to the United States to seek asylum. However, only one Mexican journalist - Jorge Luis Aguirre - has been granted asylum since the cartel war erupted. Unfortunately, asylum officers and immigration judges tend to assume that most Mexican asylum seekers are simply victims of widespread, random violence, which is an insufficient basis on which to assert a successful claim.

Nonetheless, journalists remain hopeful that Aguirre's case will open the door for more approvals.

Read more here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130087939

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