Mexico’s plan to receive thousands of expelled citizens from the United States is nothing less ambitious. The designs are ongoing to build nine reception centers along the border – huge scenes created in parking, stadiums and warehouses – with mobile kitchens operating by the Armed Forces.
Details of the initiative – called “Mexico, hugs you” – were only revealed this week, although Mexican officials said they had planned it in recent months, since Donald J. Trump promised to carry out the biggest expulsion of immigrants without documents In us history.
Almost every Government Branch – 34 Federal Services and 16 State Governments – is expected to participate in one way or another: to deal with people in their homeland, to organize the logistics, to provide medical care, to register recent refunded programs Social welfare such as pensions and paid apprenticeships, along with the delivery of cash cards worth about $ 100 each.
Officials say they are also negotiating agreements with Mexican companies to connect people with jobs.
“We are ready to take you on this side of the border,” Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rosa Rosa Icela Rodríguez said at a press conference. “Repatriation is an opportunity to return home and reunite with the family.”
Mexican’s Claudia Sheinbaum President called the expected large -scale deportations a “unilateral move” and said he did not agree with them. But as the country with the only largest number of unauthorized citizens living in the United States – it is estimated that four million people in 2022 – Mexico found himself obliged to prepare.
The government’s plan focuses on Mexicans deported by the United States, although the president has stated that the country could receive temporary foreign deportation.
Mexico is not only in preparation: Guatemala, his neighbor to the south, which also has a large population without documents in the United States, recently put a plan to absorb his own departure.
While Mexican Foreign Minister spoke to the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week on immigration and security issues, Mexico and other countries in the region said they have not been informed by Trump’s administration in his deportation plans , letting them fight in the absence of any details.
“The return of Donald Trump again finds Mexico unprepared to cope with these scenarios,” said Sergio Luna, who works with the monitoring network of immigrant defense organizations, Mexican coalition of 23 shelters, migratory houses and organizations that spread throughout the country.
“We cannot continue to respond to emergency situations with programs that may have the best intentions, but be completely reduced,” Mr Luna said. “What shows this is that for decades Mexico has benefited from Mexican immigrants through remittances, but has resigned from this population to oblivion.”
In addition, while the government has a fleet of 100 buses to get the deports back to their states, many of them had left these places to escape violence and lack of opportunities in the first place.
Other experts wondered if the Mexican government was really willing to deal with the long -term trauma that deportations and family divisions could cause.
“These people are going to return and their return will have an impact on their mental health,” said Camelia Tigau, a migration researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Even with the new facilities, existing shelters-often small and subjective-can be hard to serve large numbers recently reached people along with the usual population of immigrants from the south hoping to cross the US border, the US border said, , although although the number of immigrants has been drastically reduced in recent months.
“We cannot prepare because we do not have financial resources,” said Gabriela Hernández, director of the Casa Tochán shelter in Mexico, adding that her team is mainly based on donations from everyday citizens. “That is why we consider this to be an emergency. It’s like an earthquake.”
Other bodies in Mexico’s refuge in Mexico said no extra support had been offered by the government.
The city of Mexico, the capital, is likely to end up taking many of the repatriated. Studies show that when deported, people often do not leave their homes, but are transferred to larger cities.
“It is good that the Mexican government is planning for the initial reception,” said Claudia Masferrer, an immigration researcher who has studied the return from the United States to Mexico and their consequences. Still, he added, “It is important to think about what will happen later, in the coming months.”
Temístocles Villanueva, head of the human mobility of the city of Mexico, said in an interview that officials were planning to create new shelters and almost triple the capital’s ability to host immigrants and deportes – over 3,000 of about 1,000.
Those who work with immigrants and deported people are also concerned that Mexico and other countries in the region could hit their efforts to get a large number of people if Trump’s administration stops foreign aid disbursement, as Mr Rubio said on Tuesday What he started doing after an executive order signed by Mr Trump on Monday.
“This could be translated into a crisis, or at least a temporary weakening of these humanitarian aid support networks,” Mr Luna said.
The United States is the largest funding of the United Nations International Migration Organization, for example, which currently offers many of the services provided to immigrants and deports, starting with the health supplies that people receive when they come out of the Expection flights.
The organization, which works with the Mexican government for the “Mexican hug” plan, refused to comment.
In a cable sent to foreign ministry officials on Tuesday, Mr Rubio specifically mentioned migration in relation to external assistance. In the past, this help has also gone to programs aimed at relieving hunger, diseases and pain of war.
In his cable, Mr Rubio said that “mass immigration is the most subsequent issue of our time” and the department will no longer take actions that will “facilitate or encourage it”.
Diplomacy, especially in the western hemisphere, will “prioritize the US border,” he added.
Mrs Sheinbaum has marked that Mexico could take deported besides the Mexicans. She said, however, that her government was planning to “volunteer” to return any non-Mexican nationals-including those waiting for asylum hearing in the United States-in their countries of origin.
The question of who would pay to return to them, he said, was on the list of issues he was planning to discuss with US government officials.
