Mexico prepares to receive migrants from the United States after Trump’s return order – usa365.news

In the shadow of a massive cross, workers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building a mini-city of their own. Tent city.

At the old fairgrounds, under the altar that Pope Francis built for Mass in 2016, the Mexican government is preparing to receive thousands of deportees it expects to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks.

Juarez is one of eight border locations along the 3,000-kilometre (1,900-mile) border where Mexico is preparing to receive the expected influx.

Men in boots and baseball caps climb atop a massive metal structure to drape over a thick white tarp, erecting a makeshift shelter to temporarily house men and women who look just like them.

Temporary workers, domestic workers, kitchen staff and farmworkers are likely to be among those to be sent south soon, once what President Donald Trump has called “the largest deportation in American history” begins.

In addition to protection from the elements, the deportees will receive food, medical care and assistance in obtaining Mexican identity documents, under a deportation support program that President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration calls “Mexico Embraces You.”

Mexican Interior Minister Rosa Aisela Rodriguez said on the day of Trump’s inauguration: “Mexico will do everything necessary to care for its citizens and will allocate everything necessary to receive those returning to their homeland.”

For her part, President Sheinbaum stressed that her government will first pay attention to the humanitarian needs of the returnees, saying that they will be eligible to benefit from the social programs and pensions provided by her government, and will be eligible to work immediately.

She urged Mexicans to “remain calm and calm” about relations with President Trump and his administration more broadly — from deportations to the threat of tariffs.

“With Mexico, I think we’re doing very well,” President Trump said in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. The two neighbors may find a workable solution on migration that is acceptable to both – and President Sheinbaum has said the key is dialogue and keeping channels of communication open.

However, she is undoubtedly aware of the potential pressure that President Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency at the US border could put on Mexico.

An estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the United States, and the prospect of a mass return could quickly saturate and overwhelm border cities like Juarez and Tijuana.

It’s an issue that worries José María Garcia Lara, director of the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana. As he showed me around the facility, which was already nearing capacity, he said there were very few places that could accommodate more families.

“If we had to, maybe we could put some people in the kitchen or the library,” he says.

However, there comes a point where there just isn’t any room left – and donations of food, medical supplies, blankets and hygiene products will be severely limited.

“We are being hit on two fronts,” Garcia says. “First, the arrival of Mexicans and other migrants fleeing violence.”

“But we will also see mass deportations. We don’t know how many people will come across the border and need our help. Those two things together can create a big problem.”

Furthermore, another key part of Trump’s executive orders includes a policy called “Remain in Mexico” under which immigrants awaiting asylum appointments in U.S. immigration court must remain in Mexico before those appointments.

When the “Remain in Mexico” principle was in place previously, during Trump’s first term and under the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, Mexican border towns struggled to cope.

Human rights groups have also repeatedly denounced the risks posed to migrants by being forced to wait in dangerous cities where crime linked to drug gangs is common.

This time, Sheinbaum made clear that Mexico had not approved the plan and would not accept any non-Mexican asylum seekers from the United States while they awaited their asylum hearings. It is clear that the “Remain in Mexico” initiative will only succeed if Mexico is prepared to comply with it. So far, I have drawn a line.

President Trump has deployed about 2,500 troops to the southern border of the United States where they will be tasked with carrying out some of the logistics of his crackdown.

Meanwhile, Mexican soldiers in Tijuana help prepare for the consequences. The authorities have prepared an event center called Flamingo, which includes 1,800 beds for the returnees and the forces who bring supplies and prepare the kitchen and bathrooms.

As President Trump was signing executive orders Monday, a minivan passed through the gates of the Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana with a handful of deportees on board.

A small number of journalists gathered to try to speak, ostensibly, with the first deportees under Trump. It was just a routine deportation, perhaps weeks in the making and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing in front of a crowd of people in Washington, D.C.

However, symbolically, as the minibus sped past waiting media towards a government-run shelter, this was the first of many.

Mexico will have to go to great lengths to receive them, accommodate them and find a place for them in a country some will not have seen since they left as children.