Asylum and refugee status: Legal distinctions and contemporary challenges

Resumen

Contemporary global mobility has intensified the complexity of international protection mechanisms revealing significant conceptual and procedural confusion between asylum and refugee status. The article addresses this problem by examining how the two figures are grounded in distinct legal traditions, institutional processes, and normative obligations. The study’s objective is to clarify these differences through a detailed analysis of their international, regional, and Mexican legal foundations, and to evaluate the contemporary challenges that have blurred their operation in practice.

Methodologically, the article conducts a doctrinal analysis of key international instruments (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, the Cartagena Declaration, and Latin American asylum treaties) combined with the examination of jurisprudence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It also incorporates empirical data from unhcr, iom, and human rights organizations regarding displacement trends and policy restrictions in the Americas. The results demonstrate clear legal distinctions: asylum remains a sovereign act rooted in regional human rights traditions while refugee status constitutes a universal treaty-defined category with standardized criteria and rights. In Mexico, this differentiation is institutionally formalized through separate authorities (sre for asylum, comar for refugee status). However, the study finds that mixed migration flows, regional displacement crises (especially Venezuela, Haiti, and Cuba), restrictive U.S. policies (Title 42, acas, cbp One), and border externalization have eroded access to both institutions, producing what scholars describe as a “crisis of access” rather than a crisis of numbers. The article concludes that protecting asylum and refugee status requires strengthening institutional capacity, reaffirming non-refoulement as jus cogens, and adapting protection frameworks to address emerging displacement drivers such as organized crime and ecological collapse.