MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Venezuela’s deepening political and economic crisis has provoked a surge of asylum seekers to Mexico this year, government figures show, with applications to stay in Mexico setting a record pace.

Socorro Flores Liera, Mexico's deputy foreign minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, Mexico August 4, 2017. Picture taken August 4, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

During just the first six months of this year, 1,420 Venezuelans have sought asylum in Mexico, a nearly four-fold jump compared to the 361 total Venezuelan asylum applicants for all of 2016.

No Venezuelans applied for asylum in Mexico in 2014 or 2015.

“It’s not normal for so many Venezuelans to come here,” Socorro Flores, Mexico deputy foreign minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, told Reuters in an interview.

Venezuelans made up 21 percent of total asylum seekers in Mexico during the first half of this year, compared to just 4 percent during the same period in 2016.

About 40 percent of the Venezuelan asylum applicants have received approval, making them eligible for other protections and benefits including the possibility of obtaining a work visa, while the rest are still being processed.

Flores said the ongoing social upheaval in Venezuela is behind the trend.

In the latest twist in the slow-motion crisis, Venezuela’s chief prosecutor was fired on Saturday and ordered to stand trial, less than 24 hours after a newly elected legislative superbody was installed with sweeping powers to strengthen President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power. [nL1N1KR08Q]

“Venezuela is a divided country, it is a polarized country, and it will require a lot of vision and a lot of international support to sit down and have a dialogue that can find a solution,” said Socorro.

“The region does not want to see a Venezuela plunged into violence and chaos.”

Street protests since April in the South American nation have left more than 120 people dead as rock-throwing protesters have been met by rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas.

Also on Saturday, South American trade bloc Mercosur indefinitely suspended Venezuela, adding to international pressure on Maduro to dismantle the newly created assembly and restore democracy. [nL1N1KR0B6]</s>These weaknesses are particularly glaring, advocates say, as some legislators in Washington push for a legal change that would require migrants to apply for asylum in Mexico if they reached the United States by traveling through it. A bill pending in Congress “would allow the return of apprehended Central American refugees to Mexico, where they could apply for protection,” without the need for a bilateral agreement with Mexico, according to a summary from the House Judiciary Committee, which approved the bill last month.

Such changes “would undermine U.S. global leadership and violate American legal commitments, even if Mexico had a strong refugee protection system,” said a report published last month by Human Rights First. “They are all the more dangerous because Mexico doesn’t.”

Officials with the National Migration Institute, Mexico’s immigration enforcement agency, and the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, or Comar, the department that processes asylum petitions, did not grant interviews for this article.

Though the vast majority of northbound migrants from Central America still regard Mexico as a transit corridor to the United States, the country has increasingly become an attractive destination in its own right.

Last year, nearly 8,800 people applied for asylum in Mexico, almost seven times as many as in 2013, according to government statistics.

Some of the increase has been because of stronger immigration enforcement in Mexico, particularly along its southern border. Some detained migrants, faced with deportation to their home countries, have chosen to apply for asylum.

Over the last several months, the Trump administration’s immigration policies have stoked concern among many potential migrants in Central America that crossing the border and getting by in the United States without proper documentation have become more difficult. As a result, far fewer Central Americans appear to be making the trek, particularly those whose principal motivation is to escape poverty.

But Central Americans fleeing chronic violence, particularly in Honduras and El Salvador, continue to leave their countries in large numbers, and an increasing number are deciding to seek refuge in Mexico, claiming they are at risk of, or have suffered, certain kinds of persecution in their home countries.

Officials predict that the total number applying for asylum this year will reach 20,000, more than twice the number of last year.

This surge has put intense pressure on the Mexican government, and Comar, the agency that processes asylum applications, has not kept pace. The agency got a significant lift last year when the United Nations agreed to cover the cost of hiring 29 additional staff members, but its employees are still overloaded.

“While the number of asylum claimants has increased many times over, the budget of Comar has not,” said Mark Manly, the Mexico representative for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “This has put the Mexican asylum system under significant strain.”

The stress on the staff members has contributed to sloppy work and inconsistent adjudication, immigrants’ advocates and human rights workers contend.

The outcome of an application for asylum “depends a lot on who reviews the case,” said Nancy Pérez García, director of Sin Fronteras, a group based in Mexico City that promotes the rights of migrants and refugees.

Even worse, advocates and immigration lawyers say, many people are not even getting the chance to be considered for asylum.

For many, their first contact with the Mexican authorities is when immigration-enforcement officials detain them. According to protocols, agents are supposed to screen the migrants to assess whether they might need protection and, if so, to refer them to the refugee agency.

But in some cases, agents fail to screen properly and instead channel people into the deportation process. Amnesty International said in a report published in June that “numerous asylum seekers” told the group’s researchers they had been deported on earlier trips and had never been informed of their right to seek asylum.

“There’s a lack of education both for the foreigners and for the people who have first contact with them,” said Alejandra Macías Delgadillo, the national legal services coordinator in Mexico for Asylum Access, a group based in Oakland, Calif. “We continue to emphasize the importance of timely information.”

Agents have also been accused of actively dissuading migrants from seeking asylum, saying that they will have to endure months of detention as their cases are adjudicated.

For years, detention was the norm for asylum seekers until their cases were decided. But last year the government began a pilot program to test alternatives, giving petitioners their liberty while their cases were being adjudicated, and providing them with better access to humanitarian aid and psychological and legal counseling.

Mexican officials say this program has been expanded to include all migrants who have petitioned for asylum. But the rollout is far from complete. Some asylum applicants are still kept in immigration detention centers, with limited access to legal representation during the petition process, advocates say.

Under published guidelines, the government should rule on asylum requests within 45 days. But in an overtaxed system, waits have frequently been far longer, often lasting three months or more.

The reception and treatment of unaccompanied minors, tens of thousands of whom have traveled north from Central America in recent years, have been particular worries for nongovernmental groups.

Among their concerns is the extremely low number of minors who enter the asylum system in Mexico. According to Mexican government statistics, fewer than 1 percent of the more than 40,000 children detained in 2016 filed claims for asylum — a “strikingly low” figure, the Migration Policy Institute said in a report published last month. Only 131 of those minors have been granted some form of protection.

While some children do not enter the asylum process because their primary goal is to get to the United States and link up with members of their family, the low numbers are more likely attributable to other factors, advocates and asylum experts say. They say these factors include the failure of Mexican officials to identify children who need protection, a lack of access to legal representation and poor conditions after they are detained.

“Central American children fleeing violence and persecution in their countries of origin continue to face significant barriers to accessing international protection in Mexico,” said a report published in June by Kids in Need of Defense, a group based in Washington that provides legal assistance to unaccompanied immigrant children, and the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula, Mexico.

Asylum recipients have the right to work and have access to medical services and an education. But the challenges do not end. Beyond a small pilot program run by the United Nations in Saltillo, Mexico, there are few, if any, integration programs for refugees. In their quest for work, many face discrimination, and some eventually give up on Mexico.

Advocates warn that unless the asylum system is improved and made more accessible, more migrants with justifiable claims to protection might decide it’s simply not worth the effort to apply in Mexico and will continue to press north to the United States, despite the uncertainties there.

They would then risk more danger; migrants run a minefield of harm on their way north, such as rape, theft, assault and forced labor, including prostitution. By some estimates, only about 1 percent of all crimes committed against migrants result in convictions.

“Mexico has drastically increased its capacity to detain and deport migrants, but it has not given the same priority to, nor treated with the same urgency, the need to develop mechanisms for investigating crimes against them,” the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group, said in a report last month. “Impunity for crimes against migrants in Mexico is at alarming levels.”</s>Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo delivers speech during the inauguration of ABA Antitrust in the Americas conference in Mexico City, Mexico June 1, 2017.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Mexico are close to announcing that they have struck a deal on sugar trade, Mexican Minister of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo said in an interview on CNBC on Tuesday.

Guajardo told CNBC the agreement would likely be announced at a planned news conference later on Tuesday with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after negotiators worked on minor technicalities overnight.</s>MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - At least eight suspected gang members died on Thursday in a gun battle with Mexican marines in Mexico City, which has largely been spared the worst of the country's drug violence.

Mexico's Navy said in statement that a patrol of marines in Tlahuac, in the southeastern part of the capital, was attacked by suspected gang members, sparking the gunfight. The Navy said that among the dead was Felipe de Jesus Luna, whom it described as the head of a violent criminal organisation.

The Navy said the gangsters were suspected of drug dealing, extortion, murder and kidnapping. It did not say if any of the marines were injured.

Maries were in the area to follow up on intelligence about the whereabouts of local criminal gangs, the Navy said in the statement.

The exchange was one of the most violent clashes between security forces and gangs since 17 suspected gangsters were killed in northwestern Mexico at the end of June.

Since 2007 when former President Felipe Calderon launched his assault on drug cartels, Mexico City has largely avoided the violence that has plagued much of the country and resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.

But violence has been rising in Mexico City, according to Interior Ministry data. In the first five months of 2017, there were 438 murders in the capital, up nearly 20 percent from the same period last year.</s>Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo gestures during the presentation of Mexico's negotiating team for the renewal of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Mexico City, Mexico, August 2, 2017.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will host the second round of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) around Sept. 10, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told reporters on Wednesday.

The talks between Canada, Mexico and the United States are due to start in Washington on Aug. 16.</s>Meet the emojified salamander who’s the new face of Mexico’s capital, thanks to a civic design contest.

The contest was organized by Laboratory for the City , an experimental arm of the city government that organizes projects bridging academia, nonprofits, private businesses, and the public sector, and Zoe Mendelson (who also designed the contest). “One of the small contemporary graphic revolutions has been the use of emoticons,” says the laboratory’s director, Gabriella Gómez-Mont. “We thought it would be interesting to ask designers to create an emoji package that speaks to the icons that best represent the city. Not only its jewels, but also the local idiosyncrasies.”

What digital icon best sums up the culture of Mexico City? For Itzel Oropeza Castillo, it’s an axolotl, the rare Mexican salamander , eating tacos or posing as Frida Kahlo. Castillo has just been revealed as the winner of the Emoji CDMX contest, which asked residents to design 20 emojis best representing the megalopolis.

Every city has a visual vernacular that represents its environment, but this is more pronounced in a city with an aesthetic tradition as rich as Mexico City’s. From the murals at the UNAM library depicting the pre-Hispanic past to Lance Wyman’s iconic logo and signage for the 1968 Olympic Games , to the more recent CDMX campaign (in which the DF, or Distrito Federal, was rechristened CDMX, or Ciudad de México, following a series of reforms aimed at devolving power), visual culture has had a central place in city politics and identity. However, even as branding has steadily sought to position it as a global city, Mexico City’s relationship to its own graphic representation is complex.

The second-place winners, Eduardo Camacho Mayén and Pedro Rodrigo Grajeda Ortega, designed emoji versions of the famous Xochimilco boats; a corn cob covered in cream (elote); and the Mexican eagle wrapped in a snake, a reference to an Aztec legend. In third place, Ivonne Andrea Torres and Martin Robert Cook made emojis of a quinceañera stepping out of a limousine; a dog walker; and the well-known bus that picks up old appliances and mattresses around the city.

For example, Mexico’s logo for the 1968 Olympics does not just connote its proud hosting of the Games (or the memorable moment when Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the Black Power salute). It also came to be associated with the Tlatelolco massacre in October 1968, when hundreds of student protestors were gunned down by soldiers and police in a Mexico City square. Similarly, the recent rebranding of the city has been criticized as commodification of its visual culture. (“CDMX” is now a registered trademark, used by the city government for tourism and business purposes.)

Entries to Emoji CDMX were evaluated by an international panel of artists, designers, and communication experts: Zoe Mendelson, Federico Jordan, Óscar Estrada, Jenny 8. Lee, and Fred Benenson. The criteria were which symbols best represented the city and which would be most widely used. Some of the unsuccessful entries “were very interesting, but they didn’t represent daily chilango life,” Mendelson says. (Chilango is a slang term referring to city residents.)

The winning designs—plus honorable mentions and a few others handpicked by Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera—will be available to download for free on Google Play and the Apple App Store. In addition to being able to see the emojis they designed on their phones, the three winners will also receive prizes (roughly $1,700 for first place and smaller amounts for second and third place).

Not long after Mexico City announced the emoji contest in June, chilangos took to Twitter with criticism. Some denounced the use of public resources (although it was entirely funded from private sources), while others mocked the city’s sense of priorities. “We don’t have new public transport, but we do have new emoji. Cosmopolitan Mexico City,” one Twitter user remarked.

Gómez-Mont says she realizes that emojis don’t come at the top of a city’s to-do list. “The initiative does not claim to, nor has it ever intended to, solve the problems of the city,” she says. Unfazed by Twitter jabs, she says the public debate sparked by the contest is healthy. “I don’t think that an exploration of these icons, so central to our city’s identity, resolves negative feelings,” says Gómez-Mont. “On the contrary, it’s often a way to put them forward, to speak also of our pains and frustrations—usually with a certain sense of humor that characterizes many Mexicans.”

This post also appears in Spanish on our sister site, CityLab Latino.</s>TOLUCA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's ruling party fended off a leftist challenger in a major state election seen as a test run for a presidential vote next year, propelling the country's peso currency to its strongest level since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected.

But the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) 3 percentage-point margin of victory in the central State of Mexico, the country's most populous, was a close call for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose party has ruled it for nearly nine decades.

A narrow defeat will not end, or even dampen, the aspirations of leftists led by veteran Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an early favorite for next year's presidential race as the contender of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party. His young party accused the PRI of vote buying and other dirty tricks, and may launch legal challenges in the weeks to come.

With nearly 98 percent of returns in from polling booths, PRI candidate Alfredo del Mazo had 34 percent of the vote compared with 31 percent for MORENA candidate Delfina Gomez.

"We are going to challenge (the results) at many booths where illegal returns were sent, and we believe that with this we could reverse the outcome," said MORENA secretary general Yeidckol Polevnsky.

In other statewide elections, also held on Sunday, the PRI lost in the western state of Nayarit and narrowly won in Coahuila, which borders the United States.

"The PRI struggled to hold on to the gubernatorial seat in both the State of Mexico and Coahuila, which have traditionally been very favorable electoral battlegrounds, and suffered significant losses in Nayarit and in the municipal election in Veracruz," said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos.

"This does not bode well for the PRI in the presidential election next year," Ramos added.

Still, markets reacted positively to the news that the PRI was bound to retain power in Mexico State.

The Mexican peso MXN=MXN=D2 gained nearly 2 percent in Monday morning trade, on the setback for Lopez Obrador, a sign of ongoing market distrust of the combative leader who has opposed economic liberalization in Mexico.

The result also gave a boost to OHL Mexico (OHLMEX.MX), the Mexican unit of Spanish construction firm OHL, whose share price rose by as much as 9.5 percent.

Investors fear that Lopez Obrador and other opposition leaders, who have accused OHL Mexico of helping to finance the PRI in the State of Mexico, could go after the firm's lucrative contracts if they are elected to power. OHL Mexico has rejected the allegations.

The PRI is battling widespread anger at corruption and rising violent crime under Pena Nieto as the countdown starts for the July 2018 presidential election.

Lopez Obrador has alleged fraud in past elections, and he vowed to scrutinize the results from every voting booth.

"We will never resort to violence, but we are going to firmly defend this country's democracy," he said in a video message. Gomez, the candidate, said she would not protest the result on the streets.

Known as AMLO, the silver-haired politician earned the ire of many Mexico City residents after the 2006 presidential vote when he brought parts of the capital to a standstill with mass protests, saying he had been robbed of victory by center-right candidate Felipe Calderon.

"The lengths that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador goes to challenge the result will have an important bearing on his presidential candidacy," said Nicholas Watson of Teneo Intelligence.

Prosecutors are probing the circumstances of piles of pig heads dumped on Saturday near MORENA offices and at polling stations in several municipalities.

Also under investigation were telephone threats and fake electoral literature warning of attacks - tactics used to dissuade people from voting.

Encompassing many populous neighborhoods on the edge of Mexico City, the State of Mexico is home to one in eight Mexican voters and it has long been a source of strength and financing for the PRI.

Del Mazo, however, had a poor showing compared to his predecessors despite his family's dominance in the state's politics. He secured barely half the share of vote and a fraction of the margin of victory that the current governor won six years ago with the backing of Pena Nieto, himself a former governor of the state whose own popularity has since plunged.

Failing to put a stop to corruption scandals and struggling to tame brutal gang violence has cost the party dearly.

Mexico's attorney general's office said on Sunday a former state governor for the PRI, Roberto Borge, had been arrested at Mexico's request in Panama on corruption charges. Borge, an ex-governor of Quintana Roo, encompassing the resort of Cancun, has previously denied wrongdoing.

Lopez Obrador's State of Mexico campaign was hurt by a failure to ally with others in the opposition and references by rivals to crisis-hit Venezuela, which the PRI argues mirrors his economic model. He denies the accusation.

The campaigner has opposed the opening of Mexico's energy sector to private capital, a key reform under Pena Nieto, but no longer vows to reverse it.

Linking Lopez Obrador to late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has helped rivals beat him to the top job in two previous bids at the presidency.

Victory for Lopez Obrador in 2018 could push Mexico in a more nationalist direction at a time of tension with the United States, with U.S. President Donald Trump riling Mexicans with threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a border wall.</s>MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's government on Thursday urged Venezuela's government to suspend a planned July 30 vote to elect a constituent assembly with powers to rewrite the constitution and override all other institutions, including the current opposition-led legislature.

In a statement, the Mexican foreign ministry called on the government of President Nicolas Maduro to shelve the vote "and thereby open the door to a negotiation to resolve the serious democratic crisis Venezuela is going through."

Mexico has taken an increasingly critical line with Maduro's government in recent months, expressing alarm at the political unrest in the country and the state of democracy there. Maduro faces widespread foreign pressure to abort the constitutional assembly.

The tough Mexican line has helped it find common ground with the government of U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom Mexico is navigating a sensitive diplomatic phase due to the imminent renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Mexican government's call adds to growing pressure on Maduro after more than seven million Venezuelans voted in an unofficial referendum at the weekend to repudiate his plans to rewrite the country's constitution and create the new assembly.

The ministry said the referendum showed Venezuela was "deeply polarized" and that the planned assembly would only aggravate divisions and unrest in the country.

Mexico remained ready to assist in diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the impasse in Venezuela, it added.</s>(CNN) You've seen the news reports: the protests in the streets, the long lines at the stores. But you may not have paid much attention to the chaos gripping Venezuela .

How are events in a socialist country of 30 million people, thousands of miles away, relevant to your life, you may have wondered.

Here are five reasons why the Venezuelan crisis should matter to all of us.

It's creating thousands of new refugees

The food and medicine shortages, soaring prices, political instability and violence have forced tens of thousands of Venezuelans to flee. They're now the top asylum seekers in the US, ahead of citizens from China, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. It's the first time Venezuelans have topped the list.

More than 21,600 Venezuelans have sought asylum so far in the 2017 fiscal year. That's almost four times higher than in 2015, when 5,605 Venezuelans applied for asylum.

"The US has enjoyed being in a peaceful, democratic neighborhood for many years ... and this could change that," said Fabiana Perera, a Foreign Policy Interrupted fellow at George Washington University.

Caracas, she added, "is only a three-hour flight from Miami.

A wave of new asylum-seekers would not be welcome in the current American political climate, said Christopher Reeve Linares, a freelance journalist who has covered Venezuela.

"There is a rise in xenophobia in the US, and a flood of Venezuelans from across social strata into the country risk local backlash and becoming pawns and scapegoats of US politicians," he said.

It's an assault on democracy - and that's troubling

Many observers say what's gone on politically in Venezuela over the last two years is nothing less than a democratic mugging.

President Nicolás Maduro stacked the Supreme Court with his supporters to block any impeachment attempts after the country's opposition leaders won a majority of seats in the National Assembly in 2015.

Then the Maduro-backed Supreme Court briefly attempted to dissolve the National Assembly and acquire its legislative powers, sparking a wave of protests that have continued almost daily since March. More than 100 people have been killed.

Tamara Taraciuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch who covered the country for eight years, says the attacks on one branch of a democratic government by another should make Americans sit up and pay attention.

"You should care about it because (the turmoil) goes at the core of your values," Taraciuk said. "There is absolutely no check on executive power (in Venezuela). People in the US can see just how dangerous an autocratic government can be."

It could give rise to anti-American sentiment in the region

Latin American dictators love to rail against the United States. Fidel Castro's fiery denunciations of the American "imperialists" was a key part of the late Cuban leader's persona. The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez infamously bashed former President George W. Bush at the United Nations in 2006.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that Maduro is using the current crisis to whip up flames of anti-Americanism throughout both Venezuela and the region.

Latin Americans are sensitive to what some consider "imperialist" policies coming from Washington, making it easier for leaders like Maduro to foster mistrust of the United States.

"It's important for the US to play an active role in Latin America so that democratic backslidings like this won't happen again," Perera said.

There's also a fundamental human reason why we should care about what's happening in Venezuela: People there are enduring suffering that would be unimaginable to most of us.

Many have dubbed this phenomenon the "Maduro diet" for the embattled president, who has said that doing without "makes you tough."

It could hurt us in our pocketbook

The turmoil in Caracas could hit Americans in one of our most sensitive spots: the gas pump.

"The US is the main buyer of Venezuelan oil, so there's a very close relationship there between both governments," Taraciuk said.

Sanctions would force the US to buy oil elsewhere. And that would eventually force Americans to shell out more money when they gas up.

"Venezuela has the largest (crude) oil reserves of any country on Earth, so the amount of petroleum leaving or staying in Venezuela will affect prices," Linares said.</s>This photo gallery highlights some of the top news images made by Associated Press photographers in Latin America and the Caribbean that were published in the last week.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government announced late Sunday that more than 8 million Venezuelans had participated in the election for a constituent assembly that will be granted virtually unlimited powers. His count was put into question by at least one independent exit poll which showed turnout at less than half that number. Opposition leaders boycotted the election.

With his job on the line, Brazil’s President Michel Temer eked out a victory in a congressional vote over a bribery charge against him that has fueled angst and anger across Latin America’s largest nation. Members of Congress’ lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, voted 263-227 Wednesday against suspending the president and sending him for trial before Brazil’s highest court.

Sewage breakdowns in Mexico City’s “floating gardens” of Xochimilco and in the country’s Yucatan peninsula resort of Isla Holbox have officials warning of threats to residents and tourism. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Xochimilco has a series of canals and agricultural plots built by the Aztecs on floating beds of reeds, tree roots and soil.

Bolivia struggled unsuccessfully for decades to improve maternal deliveries then it turned to training midwives, joining international efforts to bring midwives into closer contact with the medical community. The government has trained about 500 midwives and is incorporating them into its health system to bolster a campaign to reduce Bolivia’s maternal mortality, which is the highest in South America.

Brazilian cowboys reenacted the tradition of travelling hundreds of miles in ox carts, now coined the Ox Cart Festival, to mark the annual corn harvest. And farmers in Paraguay camped out in the capital to demand forgiveness of their debt after a failed harvest.

Mexico hosted its first women’s soccer league match and Peru celebrated its independence Day.

This photo gallery was curated by photographer Moises Castillo in Guatemala City. On Twitter: @moises1975
Socorro Flores Liera, Mexico's deputy foreign minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, that during the first half of 2017, 1,420 Venezuelans have sought asylum in Mexico, a nearly four-fold jump compared to the 361 total Venezuelan asylum applicants for all of 2016, as the result of Venezuela's deepening political and economic crisis.