Mexico is preparing to welcome back migrants from the US after Trump’s return order

In the shadow of a huge crucifix, laborers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building their own little town. Tent city.

On the old fairgrounds, under an altar built for a Mass by Pope Francis in 2016, the Mexican government is preparing for thousands of deportees expected to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks.

Juarez is one of eight border posts along the 3,000-kilometer (1,900-mile) border where Mexico is preparing for the expected influx.

Men in boots and baseball caps climb to the top of a huge metal structure to cover themselves on a thick white tarp, erecting a rudimentary shelter to temporarily house men and women just like them.

Casual workers, domestic workers, kitchen staff and farm workers are likely to be among those sent south soon after what President Donald Trump calls “the largest deportation in American history” begins.

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

“Mexico will do whatever it takes to take care of its compatriots and spend whatever it takes to receive those who are repatriated,” Mexican Interior Minister Rosa Isela Rodriguez said on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

For her part, President Sheinbaum stressed that her government would first address the humanitarian needs of the returnees, saying they would be eligible for her government’s welfare programs and pensions and immediately eligible to work.

She urged Mexicans to “remain calm and cool” about dealing 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 still find a workable immigration solution that’s acceptable to both — President Sheinbaum said the key is dialogue and keeping the channels of communication open.

However, she is undoubtedly aware of the potential stress that President Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency on the US border could create for 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 a problem that worries José María García Lara, director of the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana. As he shows me around the facility, which is already nearing capacity, he says there is very little room to accommodate more families.

“If we have to, maybe we can put people in the kitchen or the library,” he says.

However, there comes a point when there is simply no room left – and donations of food, medical supplies, blankets and hygiene products will be stretched thin.

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

“But we will also have mass deportations. We don’t know how many people will cross the border needing our help. Together, these two things can create a huge problem.”

Additionally, another key part of Mr. Trump’s executive orders includes a policy called “Remain in Mexico,” under which immigrants awaiting dates to file their asylum cases in a U.S. immigration court will have to remain in Mexico before those dates. appointments.

When Stay in Mexico was in place before, 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 condemned the risks migrants face by being forced to wait in dangerous cities where crime linked to drug cartels is rife.

This time, Sheinbaum made it clear that Mexico has not agreed to the plan and will not accept non-Mexican asylum seekers from the US while they await their asylum hearings. Clearly, “Remain in Mexico” only works if Mexico is willing to comply. So far he draws a line.

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

Meanwhile, in Tijuana, Mexican soldiers are helping prepare for its aftermath. Authorities have prepared an event center called the Flamingo, with 1,800 beds for the returning refugees and the soldiers delivering supplies, with a kitchen and showers.

As President Trump signed executive orders Monday, a van drove through the gates of the Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, carrying a handful of deportees.

Several journalists had gathered to try to speak with what appeared to be the first deportees of the Trump era. However, this was just a routine deportation that was likely weeks in the making and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing in front of a cheering crowd in Washington.

Yet, symbolically, as the van whizzed past waiting media to a government-run shelter, they were the first of many.

Mexico will have a lot of work to do to welcome them, house them and find a place for them in a nation that some won’t have seen since they left as children.