UN refugee agency urges EU to continue quotas

Associated PressJanuary 25, 2018
BRUSSELS (AP) — The Latest on the influx of migrants into Europe (all times local):

2:30 p.m.

The U.N.'s refugee agency is urging the European Union not to abandon its system for sharing refugees when any member country is overwhelmed by migrant arrivals.


UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker Turk said Thursday that refugee relocation "is absolutely crucial."

Frontline countries Greece and Italy were unable to cope with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in 2015.

When voluntary relocation of refugees failed, a mandatory quota scheme was introduced, but some countries refused to take their share, resulting in legal challenges.  https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-un-refugee-agency-urges-eu-continue-quotas-133233064.html.                                                                                                                                (Hell it aint safe here!- CDH) Amnesty Int'l says Mexico fails to offer migrants asylum

Associated PressJanuary 23, 2018

FILE - In this June 19, 2014 file photo, Central American migrants emerge from side streets to crowd on to the train tracks as a northbound freight train arrives to Arriaga, Chiapas state, Mexico. An Amnesty International survey of 385 Central American migrants suggests that Mexican authorities routinely force people to return to dangerous conditions in their home countries, the rights group said Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
FILE - In this June 19, 2014 file photo, Central American migrants emerge from side streets to crowd on to the train tracks as a northbound freight train arrives to Arriaga, Chiapas state, Mexico. An Amnesty International survey of 385 Central American migrants suggests that Mexican authorities routinely force people to return to dangerous conditions in their home countries, the rights group said Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
More
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An Amnesty International survey of 385 Central American migrants suggests that Mexican authorities routinely force people to return to dangerous conditions in their home countries, the rights group said Tuesday.

Seventy-five percent of the migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who were interviewed said they had not been informed by Mexican immigration agents about their right to seek asylum in Mexico.

The report also said that "people seeking asylum whose lives are at risk in Central America are very frequently pressured into signing 'voluntary return' deportation papers."