By MARTÍN SILVA REY and FÉLIX MÁRQUEZ
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico (AP) — Mexico raised sprawling tents on the U.S. border Wednesday because it braced for President Donald Trump to meet his pledge to reverse mass migration.
At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday evening, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a gaggle that was arrested that morning in farm fields close to Denver. One other man mentioned he was in a gaggle that had been introduced from Oregon. Everybody carried their belongings in a small orange bag.
Neither man’s account might be independently confirmed.
The variety of folks deported Tuesday was decrease than the every day common of about 500 final yr, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum famous at her every day press briefing. Shortly ramping up deportations — as Trump pledges — faces logistical and monetary challenges.
Past the tents, the Mexican authorities is constructing 9 shelters in border cities to obtain deportees. It has mentioned that it will additionally use current amenities in Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Matamoros, to soak up migrants whose appointments to request asylum within the U.S. had been canceled on Inauguration Day.
Sheinbaum has mentioned that Mexico will give humanitarian help to migrants from different international locations whose asylum appointments had been cancelled, in addition to these despatched to attend in her nation below the revived coverage referred to as Stay in Mexico. Mexico desires to finally and voluntarily return them to their nations, she has mentioned.
Mexican Overseas Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held their first phone dialog of their new positions.
“It was a very good conversation, very cordial, they talked about migration and security issues,” Sheinbaum mentioned.
After pledging to dramatically shift border and immigration insurance policies, on Monday Trump scrapped this system referred to as CBP One which allowed asylum seekers to schedule appointments on their telephones earlier than arriving on the border, offering a level of order. On Wednesday, the Pentagon introduced it was sending as much as 1,500 active-duty troops to the border.
On the Good Samaritan shelter in Ciudad Juarez, the Rev. Juan Fierro was making ready for yet one more change.
Lately he has seen the shelter’s inhabitants change from younger males crossing a wall-less border for work to households looking for asylum. Throughout Trump’s first time period, the coverage of constructing asylum seekers wait out the U.S. course of in Mexico meant that folks stayed on the shelter for much longer, as much as three years, Fierro mentioned.
Now he’s preparing for Trump’s promised mass deportations. His shelter suits 180 folks and may feed round 50, he mentioned. With a lot decrease migration numbers over the previous yr, he solely had a fraction of that quantity this week and is frightened about an anticipated rise.
“This shelter doesn’t have the budget, we’re practically day to day,” Fierro mentioned.
The Mexican authorities will bus some deportees to their houses in Mexico’s inside. Fierro mentioned he’ll give deportees a few months to consider whether or not to return residence, search for work in one other Mexican state or attempt to re-enter the U.S.
“The people who want to make it to the United States are going to look for the way to do it,” he mentioned.
Márquez reported from Tijuana, Mexico. AP reporters Megan Janetsky and María Verza in Mexico Metropolis contributed to this report.
