Mexico man gets US asylum after 11 relatives killed

A US court has granted asylum to a Mexican man threatened by organized crime after 11 of his family members were killed by gangsters in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, his lawyer said Tuesday.

A US immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, decided last month to grant sanctuary to Christian Chaidez, 32, after he crossed the border and told authorities that relatives aged between 24 and 66 were murdered between 2009 and 2012, lawyer Carlos Spector said.

His relatives, including brothers, cousins and uncles, were killed for refusing to pay protection money demanded by gangs, Spector told a news conference in the border city that saw more than 10,000 murders in the past six years.

"Giving asylum to Mexican victims of extortion is unusual and uncommon because it is considered a simple criminal activity not covered under the traditional definition of refugee suffering," Spector said.

But the judge ruled that Chaidez was able to prove that he was under "reasonable fear of persecution," he said.

The non-governmental group Mexicans in Exile says that the United States has approved 120 out of 9,920 asylum requests from Mexicans since 2008.

Ciudad Juarez was once dubbed the world's murder capital as cartels fought for control of the lucrative drug trafficking hub, but the homicide rate has been falling in the past three years.

A US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the case.