The Mexico project aimed at welcoming thousands of its citizens expelled from the United States is simply ambitious. Projects are underway to build nine reception centers along the border – massive tents installed in car parks, stadiums and warehouses – with mobile kitchens managed by the armed forces.
The details of the initiative – entitled “Mexico kisses you” – were only revealed this week, although Mexican officials declared that they had developed it in recent months, since Donald J. Trump committed to the greatest expulsion of undocumented immigrants in the United States. history.
Almost all branches of the government – 34 federal agencies and 16 state governments – should participate in one way or another: transport people to their original city, organize logistics, provide medical care, Entering people recently returned to social protection programs such as remunerated pensions and learning. , as well as the distribution of payment cards worth around $ 100 each.
Officials say they are also negotiating agreements with Mexican companies to allow people to access jobs.
“We are ready to receive you on this side of the border,” said Mexican interior minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez, at a press conference this week. “Repatriation is an opportunity to go home and find your family. »»
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum described the expected large -scale evictions as “unilateral measure” and said that she did not agree with them. But as a country with the greatest number of illegal citizens living in the United States-a estimated at four million people From 2022 – Mexico was forced to prepare.
The government’s plan focuses on the Mexicans expelled from the United States, even if the president said that the country could also temporarily accommodate foreign expelled.
Mexico is not the only one to prepare: Guatemala, its neighbor of the South, which also has a large undocumented population in the United States, recently launched a plan to absorb its own expelled.
While the Mexican Foreign Minister spoke this week by phone with the new US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, immigration and security issues, Mexico and other countries in the region have declared that ‘They had not been informed by the Trump administration of its expulsion projects. Let them dismember in the absence of details.
“The return of Donald Trump shows once again that Mexico is not prepared to face these scenarios,” said Sergio Luna, who works with the monitoring of migrants defense organizations, a Mexican coalition of 23 shelters, migrant houses and organizations spread across the country.
“We cannot continue to respond to emergency situations with programs that may have the best intentions but are absolutely insufficient,” said Luna. “What is showing is that for decades, Mexico benefited from Mexican migrants thanks to funding, but it resigned this population in oblivion. »»
In addition, even if the government has a fleet of 100 buses to bring the expelled to their country of origin, many of them fled these places to escape violence and the lack of opportunities.
Other experts wondered if the Mexican government was really ready to deal with the long -term trauma that fouls and family separations could cause.
“These people will come back and their return will have an impact on their mental health,” said Camelia Tigau, migration researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Even with new facilities, existing shelters-often small and sub-financially-may find it difficult to welcome a large number of people recently arrived as well as the usual population of southern migrants hoping to cross the American border, said operators of shelters, even if the number of migrants has decreased considerably in recent months.
“We cannot prepare because we have no financial resources,” said Gabriela Hernández, director of the Casa Tochán refuge in Mexico Cask, adding that her team depends mainly on the donations of ordinary citizens. “We therefore consider that this is an emergency. It’s like an earthquake.
Other shelters in Mexico City said they had not received additional support from the government.
Mexico City, the capital, will probably end up welcoming many repatriated. Studies show that when they are expelled, people often do not settle in their city of origin, but move to larger cities.
“It is a good thing that the Mexican government plans a first welcome,” said Claudia Masferrer, a migration researcher who studied the dynamics of the United States returns to Mexico and their implications. However, she added, “it is important to think about what will happen afterwards, in the coming months”.
Temístocles Villanueva, responsible for human mobility in Mexico City, said in an interview that the authorities planned to create new refuges and almost triple the capacity of the capital to accommodate migrants and deportees, from around 1,300 to more of 3,000.
Those who work with migrants and expelled people also fear that Mexico and other countries in the region can be hampered in their efforts to accommodate a large number of people if the Trump administration interrupts the payment of foreign aid, As Rubio said on Tuesday: it was starting to do so, after a decree signed Monday by Mr. Trump.
“This could result in a crisis, or at least a temporary weakening of these humanitarian aid support networks,” said Luna.
The United States is the largest funder of the international organization for migration of the United Nations, or OIM, for example, which currently offers many services provided to migrants and expelled, starting with the kits of sanitary supplies that people receive on the descent of thefts of expulsion.
The organization, which collaborates with the Mexican government in terms of “Mexico kisses you”, refused to comment.
In a cable sent to employees of the State Department on Tuesday, Mr. Rubio specifically mentioned migration in relation to foreign aid. In the past, this aid has also been intended for programs aimed at relieving hunger, disease and suffering in wartime.
In his cable, Mr. Rubio said that “mass migration is the most important problem of our time” and that the ministry would no longer take measures which “would facilitate or encourage it”.
Diplomacy, especially in the Western hemisphere, “would give priority to securing American borders,” he added.
Ms. Sheinbaum reported that Mexico could accommodate expelled other than Mexicans. However, she declared that her government planned to return “voluntarily” all non-Mexican nationals-including those awaiting an asylum hearing in the United States-in their country of origin.
The question of who would pay to restore them, she said, appeared on the list of subjects which she planned to discuss with US officials.
