Mexican workers set up tent city to house people deported from the US

In the shadow of a giant crucifix, laborers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building a mini-city of their own. A tent city.

At the old fairgrounds, beneath the altar built for 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 points along the 3,000-kilometre-long (1,900 mi) border where Mexico is preparing for the anticipated influx.

Men wearing boots and baseball caps climb to the top of a massive metal structure to drape over a thick white tarpaulin, creating a rudimentary shelter for men and women like themselves to live temporarily.

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

Along with protection from the elements, deportees will receive food, medical care and Mexican identification documents under a deportation-support program that President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration calls “Mexico Embraces You.”

“Mexico will take every necessary step to take care of our compatriots and will allocate whatever is necessary to welcome those who are returning home,” Rosa Aisla Rodríguez, the Mexican interior minister, said on the day of Trump’s inauguration. “

For his part, President Sheinbaum has stressed that his government will first meet the humanitarian needs of returnees, saying they will qualify for his government’s social programs and pensions, and will be eligible to work immediately. Will be.

He urged Mexicans to “remain calm and keep a cool mind” regarding relations with President Trump and his administration – from deportations to the threat of tariffs.

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

Undoubtedly, however, she recognizes the potential strain on Mexico from President Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency at the US border.

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

It’s an issue 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 are very few spots where it can hold more families.

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

However, there comes a point where there is no room left – and donations of food, medical supplies, blankets and hygiene products will be greatly reduced.

Mr. Garcia says, “We are being affected on two fronts. First, the influx of Mexicans and other immigrants who are fleeing violence.”

“But at the same time, we will have mass deportations. We don’t know how many people will come across the border who will need our help. Those two things combined could create a huge problem.”

Additionally, another major part of Mr. Trump’s executive orders includes a policy called “Remain in Mexico,” which requires immigrants awaiting dates for their asylum cases in U.S. immigration court to remain in Mexico until those appointments. will be.

When “Remain in Mexico” was in place during Trump’s first term and under Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, Mexican border cities struggled to deal with it.

Human rights groups have also repeatedly condemned the risk that migrants are forced to wait in dangerous cities where drug cartel-related crime is rife.

This time, Sheinbaum has made it clear that Mexico does not agree to this plan and will not accept any non-Mexican asylum seekers from the US as they wait for their asylum hearings. Obviously, “Remain in Mexico” only works if Mexico is willing to comply. So far it has drawn a line.

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

Meanwhile, Mexican troops in Tijuana are helping prepare for the fallout. Officials have prepared an event center called Flamingo with 1,800 beds, a kitchen and showers for returning soldiers and supplies.

As President Trump was signing executive orders on Monday, a minibus carrying a handful of deportees rolled through the gates of the Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana.

Some journalists reportedly gathered to try to talk to the deportees for the first time in the Trump era. However, this was just a routine deportation that had probably been in the pipeline for several weeks and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing in front of a cheering crowd in Washington DC.

Yet, symbolically, as the minibus passed waiting media and headed toward a government-run shelter, it was the first of many.

Mexico will begin its work to receive them, house them and find a place for them in a country that some will never see after they left as children.