According to a new report released in late February 2020 by the European Asylum Support Office, asylum requests have increased dramatically in Europe, and this trend is likely to continue. This marks the first increase in asylum request rates since the 2015 refugee crisis, and the increase is driven in part by migrants requesting asylum from Latin America.
Refugees and asylum seekers are driven by a number of factors, including political and economic unrest and domestic or international conflict. As political and economic upheaval were pervasive around the world in 2019, it comes as no surprise that an uptick in asylum seekers increased correspondingly. The primary factor driving the influx of migrants to Europe specifically is, according to the report, the fact that Latin American asylum seekers may be admitted to the Schengen zone without a visa, and Venezuelans represented the third-largest group of asylum seekers after Syria and Afghanistan.
The question of how to manage the increased number of asylees is one that has sown discord in many European countries. Along with an increase in migrants, this conflict, too, is likely to continue, raising the risk of political instability and reactionary policies within the Eurozone.
