Who is seeking asylum at the southern U.S. border?

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - Every year, thousands of people come to the United States seeking asylum. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is responsible for overseeing the nation's legal immigration system.

In January, more than 12,000 asylum applications were filed. Most of them were from people of Venezuela. China followed with 1,162 applications, Guatemala with 943, and El Salvador with 912.

"In recent years, we have seen a dramatic escalation increase in organized crime by gangs, also known as transnational criminal organizations, in Central America," Katie Shepherd of the American Immigration Council said. "As a result, thousands of men, women, and children have fled to the United States seeking humanitarian relief."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is responsible for overseeing the nation's legal immigration system.

In January, more than 12,000 asylum applications were filed. Most of them were from people of Venezuela. China followed with 1,162  applications, Guatemala with 943, and El Salvador with 912.

"Winning asylum in the United States is becoming more and more difficult—it could be several years of fighting your claim in immigration courts," Shepherd said. "You really have to meet a very high standard."

In February, the numbers changed. Venezuela was still leading with the most asylum applications filed followed by Central American countries. El Salvador came in second with 864, Guatemala with 859, and Honduras with 537. Those numbers decreased in March.

"Venezuela has been to the top of list a number of years now due to the very hostile civil unrest there and political climate there as well," Shepherd said.

The reason more and more people from Mexico and Central America are seeking asylum at the border rather than people from Europe and Africa is that in order to request asylum in the United States, you have to get to the U.S. first, Shepherd said.

"The situation we are seeing with Central Americans is that they're able to request relief on our southern borders," she said.

Central American Refugee Center attorney Elise Damas, who has helped asylum seekers, said that what is happening at the border now was never seen before.

"The people are coming here seeking asylum and they are following protections provided to them both by American law and by international law," Damas said. "We have to afford them the protections we would any asylum seeker. And that does not include separating them from their families."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is currently facing a crisis-level backlog of more than 300,000 pending asylum cases as of January 2018.

Seeking asylum is not an easy process and can take years. Immigration attorneys said that people from countries facing gang violence are not automatically granted asylum; they must prove their case.