Posted on 03/26/2003 2:43:32 PM PST by kattracks
Mexico seeks asylum for detained U.S.-bound Iraqis
MEXICO CITY, March 26 (Reuters) - Mexico is seeking political asylum in the United States for 15 Iraqis detained in Mexico as they headed for the U.S. border, an immigration official said on Wednesday.
The migrants, from Iraq's Christian minority, were apparently fleeing the U.S.-led war in Iraq and pose no threat, the official from Mexico's National Migration Institute told Reuters.
"Mexican and U.S. authorities are in talks to see if they might be given asylum," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The 15 Iraqis just want to ask for asylum and go to San Diego" in California, he added.
Some 100,000 Iraqi Christians live in the United States, about half of them in San Diego, according to Mexico's Interior Ministry.
Twelve Iraqis including one woman were being held in a migrant detention center in Mexico City. Most were arrested in the past month.
The other three were seized last week in Tijuana across the border from San Diego. They had false Austrian passports and were being questioned by the Attorney General's Office.
Authorities said one of the three was a U.S. national of Iraqi origin who was guiding the others to the United States.
Mexico has stepped up security along its porous 2,000-mile (3,200 km) border with the United States, deploying 10,000 soldiers there since the war on Iraq began last week.
03/26/03 17:38 ET
So9
That's comforting, but no way are they stopping Mexicans from infiltrating.
So9
Agreed.
Mexico is probably to cheap to do that, though. Leeches.
Sounds like Hitler. You should have stopped while you had one right.
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