San Diego --
Elizabeth Silva was walking her younger sister to school when two hooded men burst into her house and pumped three bullets into her father. When her 14-year-old brother rushed out of his bedroom to see what was happening, he was also shot dead.
The killings in a sun-seared farming region of western Mexico prompted her to board a bus to the U.S. border to seek asylum, a hugely popular escape route in a remote area that has seen some of the country's worst drug-fueled violence. As gunfire rang in the distance, her family hurried out of the cemetery after burying the bodies and fled the same day.
Asylum requests from Mexico have surged in recent years and, while the U.S. government doesn't say from where within Mexico, the Associated Press has found that many are now arriving at the border from the "Tierra Caliente," or Hot Country, about 250 miles west of Mexico City. Word has spread there that U.S. authorities are releasing women and children while they await hearings before immigration judges, emboldening others to follow.
The Tierra Caliente is so completely ruled by one vicious drug cartel that residents in a half-dozen towns formed self-defense groups this year to try to drive out the gang. Now, they are fleeing in droves, saying their rebellion has made them targets for cartel killings.
The Knights Templar cartel, a pseudo-religious gang that takes its name from an ancient monastic order, has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror. The cartel extorts protection payments from cattlemen, growers and businesses, prompting the vigilante patrols in February. That drew more attacks from the cartel, which sought to cut off the area's main economic activity, growing limes.
The flight from Tierra Caliente comes as asylum requests from throughout Mexico more than quadrupled to 9,206 in 2012 from six years earlier, when the Mexican government launched an offensive against drug cartels. The Department of Homeland Security says an average of 11 Mexicans sought asylum daily at San Diego border crossings from Aug. 9 to late September.
More than 90 percent of asylum requests from Mexico are eventually denied. To be granted asylum, an immigration judge must find an applicant suffered persecution or has a well-grounded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. Elizabeth Silva's path toward asylum began when the hooded men kicked open the door to the family's home in Apatzingan around 8 a.m. on Sept. 2, killing her father, Jorge Silva, 47, and brother, Jose Manuel Silva, 14, according to the Michoacan state attorney general's office. Silva suggested it had something to do with extortion payments.
"Everyone in town pays up," she said. "Everyone."
Elizabeth Silva was walking her younger sister to school when two hooded men burst into her house and pumped three bullets into her father. When her 14-year-old brother rushed out of his bedroom to see what was happening, he was also shot dead.
The killings in a sun-seared farming region of western Mexico prompted her to board a bus to the U.S. border to seek asylum, a hugely popular escape route in a remote area that has seen some of the country's worst drug-fueled violence. As gunfire rang in the distance, her family hurried out of the cemetery after burying the bodies and fled the same day.
Asylum requests from Mexico have surged in recent years and, while the U.S. government doesn't say from where within Mexico, the Associated Press has found that many are now arriving at the border from the "Tierra Caliente," or Hot Country, about 250 miles west of Mexico City. Word has spread there that U.S. authorities are releasing women and children while they await hearings before immigration judges, emboldening others to follow.
The Tierra Caliente is so completely ruled by one vicious drug cartel that residents in a half-dozen towns formed self-defense groups this year to try to drive out the gang. Now, they are fleeing in droves, saying their rebellion has made them targets for cartel killings.
The Knights Templar cartel, a pseudo-religious gang that takes its name from an ancient monastic order, has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror. The cartel extorts protection payments from cattlemen, growers and businesses, prompting the vigilante patrols in February. That drew more attacks from the cartel, which sought to cut off the area's main economic activity, growing limes.
The flight from Tierra Caliente comes as asylum requests from throughout Mexico more than quadrupled to 9,206 in 2012 from six years earlier, when the Mexican government launched an offensive against drug cartels. The Department of Homeland Security says an average of 11 Mexicans sought asylum daily at San Diego border crossings from Aug. 9 to late September.
More than 90 percent of asylum requests from Mexico are eventually denied. To be granted asylum, an immigration judge must find an applicant suffered persecution or has a well-grounded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. Elizabeth Silva's path toward asylum began when the hooded men kicked open the door to the family's home in Apatzingan around 8 a.m. on Sept. 2, killing her father, Jorge Silva, 47, and brother, Jose Manuel Silva, 14, according to the Michoacan state attorney general's office. Silva suggested it had something to do with extortion payments.
"Everyone in town pays up," she said. "Everyone."
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