Mexico’s plan to accept thousands of its citizens expelled from the United States is truly ambitious. Plans are underway to build nine reception centers along the border – large tents set up in car parks, stadiums and warehouses – equipped with mobile kitchens operated by the military.
Details of the plan, called “Mexico Embraces You,” were only revealed this week. But Mexican officials say they have been devising the plan for the past several months, after Donald J. Trump promised the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants from the United States. history.
Almost all government agencies, including 34 federal agencies and 16 state governments, are responsible for transporting people home, organizing logistics, providing health care, and enrolling recently returned people in social welfare programs such as pensions and paid apprenticeships. You are expected to participate in some way. , along with giving away cash cards worth about $100 each.
Officials said they are also negotiating contracts with Mexican companies to connect people to jobs.
“We are ready to welcome you on this side of the border,” Mexican Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said at a news conference this week. “Repatriation is an opportunity to return home and reunite with family.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she did not agree with the expected mass deportations, calling them a “unilateral measure.” But Mexico, the country with the largest number of undocumented citizens living in the United States (approximately 4 million in 2022), has realized that it has an obligation to prepare.
The government’s plan focuses on Mexicans expelled from the United States, but the president said Mexico could temporarily accept foreign deportees as well.
Mexico isn’t the only one preparing. Guatemala, the United States’ southern neighbor with a large undocumented population, recently announced plans to absorb its own deportees.
While Mexico’s foreign minister spoke by phone with new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week to discuss immigration and security issues, Mexico and other countries in the region said they had not been briefed by the Trump administration on deportation plans. Without specifics, I leave it to the scrambling.
“The return of Donald Trump has shown Mexico that it is unprepared to face this scenario again.” said Sergio Luna, who works for the Migrant Defense Organizations’ Monitoring Network, a Mexican coalition of 23 shelters, migrant homes and organizations spread across the country.
“We cannot continue to respond to emergencies with well-intentioned but completely inadequate programs,” Luna said. “What this shows is that Mexico has benefited from Mexican immigrants through remittances for decades, but has pushed this population into oblivion.”
Moreover, while the government has 100 buses to take deportees back to their home countries, many of them fled there in the first place to escape violence and lack of opportunity.
Other experts wondered whether the Mexican government was really prepared to deal with the long-term trauma that deportation and family separation could cause.
“These people will come back, and their return will affect their mental health,” said Camelia Tigau, an immigration researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Even with the new facilities, existing shelters, which are often small and underfunded, may have difficulty serving the large number of recent arrivals, including migrants from the South hoping to cross the U.S. border, shelter operators said. The number of immigrants has fallen sharply in recent months.
“We can’t prepare because we don’t have the financial resources,” said Gabriela Hernández, director of the Casa Tochan shelter in Mexico City, adding that her team relies mostly on donations from ordinary citizens. “So we consider this an emergency. “It’s like an earthquake.”
Other shelter operators in Mexico City said they had received no additional support from the government.
The capital, Mexico City, is expected to receive a significant number of returnees. Studies have shown that deported people often migrate to larger cities rather than settling in their hometowns.
“It’s good that the Mexican government is planning an initial intake,” said Claudia Masferrer, an immigration researcher who has studied the dynamics of returns from the United States to Mexico and their impact. But she added: “It’s important to think about what might happen in the coming months.”
Temístocles Villanueva, head of Mexico City’s mobility department, said in an interview that officials plan to create new shelters and nearly triple the capital’s capacity to house migrants and deportees from about 1,300 to more than 3,000. .
People who work with immigrants and deportees are also concerned that if the Trump administration cuts off foreign aid payments, Mexico and other countries in the region could be hampered in their efforts to accept large numbers of people, Mr. Rubio said Tuesday. . It started after the executive order President Trump signed on Monday.
“This could lead to a crisis, or at least a temporary weakening of humanitarian support networks,” Luna said.
For example, the United States is the largest funder of the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM). IOM currently provides many services available to immigrants and deportees, starting with hygiene kits they receive upon escaping deportation. flight.
The group, which is working with the Mexican government on the Mexico Embraces You initiative, declined to comment.
In a cable to State Department employees Tuesday, Mr. Rubio specifically mentioned immigration related to foreign aid. In the past, this aid was also used for programs aimed at alleviating hunger, disease, and wartime suffering.
Mr. Rubio said in his preamble that “mass migration is the most important issue of our time” and that the department would no longer take steps to “facilitate or encourage migration.”
Diplomacy, especially in the Western Hemisphere, “will prioritize securing our borders,” he added.
Mr. Sheinbaum signaled that Mexico may accept deportees other than Mexicans. But she said her government plans to “voluntarily” return all non-Mexican nationals to their countries of origin, including those awaiting asylum hearings in the United States.
She said the issue of who would pay for the return of goods was on the list of topics to be discussed with U.S. government officials.
