United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1997 - Mexico, 1 January 1997, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a8b538.html [accessed 8 June 2023]
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Mexico continued to host 32,500 recognized Guatemalan refugees in 1996, nearly half of whom were children born in Mexico who may be eligible to apply for full Mexican citizenship at age 18. More than 4,000 refugees repatriated from Mexico to Guatemala during the year. Estimates of the number of Guatemalans who lived in Mexico in refugee-like circumstances ranged from 50,000 to 100,000. UNHCR had recognized 1,970 persons, most of whom lived in Mexico City or other urban centers, as mandate refugees. According to UNHCR, the mandate refugees included more than 1,350 Salvadorans, 181 Nicaraguans, 86 Colombians, and smaller numbers from 30 other countries; 56 of the mandate refugees were newly recognized in 1996. The agency assisted only a minority of those, and in previous years has said that it believed that at least some of the refugees were probably no longer living in Mexico. The Mexican government recognized several hundred persons as political asylees. Guatemalan Refugees More than 40,000 Guatemalan refugees sought refuge in Mexico, primarily in the early 1980s. Most stayed in the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, where they lived by their own means or with the assistance of NGOs and church groups. Others relocated to UNHCR- and Mexican government-assisted refugee camps in the states of Campeche and Quintana Roo. A number of refugees who wanted to return home, even without a solution to the conflict, organized the Permanent Commissions of the Representatives of the Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico (CCPPs). In 1992, the CCPPs succeeded in getting the Guatemalan government to agree to the refugees' return, largely on their own terms. Between October 1992, when the repatriation agreement was signed, and the end of 1996, more than 22,000 refugees repatriated to Guatemala, either through the CCPP-organized returns or with UNHCR assistance. However, not all the refugees wanted to return. Many, especially those living in the camps in Campeche and Quintana Roo, had integrated socially and economically and wanted to remain permanently in Mexico. In many cases, their children had become particularly adapted to life in Mexico and wanted to remain there. The signing of a peace agreement on December 29 by the Guatemalan government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity raised hopes that those Guatemalan refugees in Mexico who still wished to repatriate could do so in 1997. Some 32,500 Guatemalan refugees remained in Mexico at the end of the year, a majority in Chiapas. The Mexican government, which on several occasions in recent years had offered the refugees in Campeche and Quintana Roo permanent residence only to rescind the offer later, made good on the offer in 1996. By the end of the year, Mexico had granted 3,875 refugees in Campeche and Quintana Roo FM2 (immigrant) visas that will permit them to apply for permanent residence after five years. It granted 310 others visas that permit them to work freely but do not lead to permanent residency. The Mexican authorities also extended Mexican nationality to 46 refugees who were married to Mexican citizens or who had Mexican-born children. Tens of thousands of other Guatemalans who entered Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s did not seek assistance or register as refugees. They worked and lived without documentation, always subject to arrest and deportation. How many of these unrecognized refugees have returned to Guatemala, or how many of those who remain in Mexico now do so primarily for economic reasons, is not known. A small number approached UNHCR or the CCPPs for repatriation assistance and joined one of the assisted repatriation programs. Estimates of the number of unregistered Guatemalans in refugee-like circumstances remaining in Mexico varied, but most ranged between 50,000 and 100,000.
