Men of military age from Russia who escaped Vladimir Putin’s order to mobilize are now lining up at the southern border of Mexico, waiting to enter the US and apply for asylum.
Hundreds of thousands of men fled the nation to avoid being sent to the front lines after the Russian president announced a partial draft in September, hoping to call up 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine.
Many of the protesters fled to other European nations, but hundreds of Russians ultimately made their way to Mexico in an effort to enter the US.
Since the start of the war in February, according to data provided by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), border patrol officers have encountered more than 31,600 Russians trying to cross the southern border in search of political asylum.
CBP officers discovered more than 5,500 Russian migrants in November alone.
In contrast, CBP recorded only roughly 4,100 encounters with Russian asylum applicants throughout the entire Fiscal Year 2021.
Igor, a 24-year-old Russian immigrant, expressed his gratitude to President Biden for “this great possibility [to] acquire political asylum in the United States” to NewsNation reporters who recently saw him at a border crossing in Arizona.
“Joseph Biden, thank you for this wonderful chance. God’s blessings on you In shaky English, he said, “God bless the USA.
According to a different traveler from the Russian province of Khabarovsk, both of them were looking for political asylum.
The immigrant, who went under the name Jasur and identified himself as a Russian Muslim, added, “In our country is a difficult scenario, not only for war, [but] also politically, spiritually.”
Jasur claimed he spent about a week in Tijuana, Mexico, but decided not to stay any longer due to the expansion of drug cartels and official corruption. He claimed to have used an Uber to get to the US border.
The Department of Homeland Security stressed in a statement on Tuesday that “the border is not open,” despite what smugglers may inform desperate and vulnerable migrants, due to confusion surrounding the anticipated termination of Title 42.
Millions of asylum seekers, mostly from South and Central America, have been turned away at the border as a result of the pandemic-era public health policy that was implemented under then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 on the grounds of halting the spread of COVID.
The US Supreme Court decided this week to extend Title 42 through at least February, when it is set to hear a legal challenge made by 19 Republican-led states. In November, a court had ordered that the asylum limits be abolished on December 21.
»Some Russians joined migrants waiting for Title 42 to expire«