Dozens of unleashed mattresses attract attention in a shelter Enabled to receive deported Mexicans in Tijuana, who is still empty after a month that Donald Trump returned to the White House with the promise of expelling millions of undocumented migrants.
The image is repeated in several of the 12 shelters Arranged by the Mexican government, prior to Trump’s investiture, to host Mexican and foreigners, they found AFP reporters.
This situation is presented because deportations continue below the average registered in the government of Democrat Joe Biden, and because many Mexicans return home by their own means.
Others choose to remain close to the border paying their expenses, with the expectation of returning to the United States.
Meanwhile, foreigners, mostly Latin Americans, They accept to be repatriated or ask for refuge to work in Mexico, According to testimonies collected by the AFP In the border cities of Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.
“This of mass deportations Follow in the field of threat, speculation “, Mónica Vega, coordinator of the Flamingos shelter in Tijuana, neighbor of the American San Diego, who declared “emergency” in mid -January providing an avalanche of expelled.
Since January 20, when Trump assumed, About 12,255 Mexicans and three thousand 344 foreigners have been deported, reports the immigration authority (INM). In 2024, a monthly average of 17,200 Mexicans and three thousand 91 foreigners were returned.
In fact, between October 2023 and September 2024the Biden government deported 271 thousand 484 migrants, the highest figure of the last decade.
In parallel to the lower number of deportations, the arrival of migrants to North borders with the United States and South with Guatemala He fell dramatically since Trump ended the main legal route to obtain asylum, according to official figures. In the southern limit the fall is 90%, according to the INM.
Only Flamingos, one of the nine shelters for Mexicans, has attended to a daily average of 55 deportees, When its capacity is for two thousand 600 people.
The situation is similar in countries like Guatemala. From January 1 to February 18, six thousand 73 nationals were deported, front 13,396 in the first two months of 2024.
Many of those expelled during Trump’s first month They were arrested after illegally crossing the border, Rodolfo Rubio, a migration expert from the Chihuahua College, in Ciudad Juárez points out.
This specialist observes a 60% drop In the flow of migrants in that part of the border, 3,100 km, where the Mexican government deployed 10,000 soldiers in exchange for Trump to delay the entry into force of 25% tariffs into the country.