Mexico is preparing to welcome returning migrants after Trump’s return order

In the shadow of a huge intersection, workers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building their own city. Tent city.

On the old fairgrounds, under the altar built for Pope Francis’ 2016 Mass, the Mexican government is preparing for the thousands of deportees they expect to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks.

Juarez is one of eight border posts along the 3,000-kilometer (1,900-mile) border where Mexico is preparing for the expected influx.

Men in boots and baseball caps climb a large metal structure to drape over thick white tarps, setting up a rudimentary shelter for temporarily domesticated men and women exactly like themselves.

Day laborers, domestic workers, kitchen workers and farm hands are likely to be among those quickly sent south in what President Donald Trump calls “the largest deportation in American history.”

In addition to protection from the elements, deportees will receive food, medical care and assistance in obtaining Mexican identity documents, as part of the department’s support program, which President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration calls “Mexico Covers You.”

“Mexico will do whatever it takes to take care of its compatriots and do whatever it takes to receive those who are repatriated,” Mexican Interior Minister Rosa Ichela Rodriguez said on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

For her part, President Sheinbaum stressed that her government will first attend to the humanitarian needs of those returning, saying they will qualify for social programs and government pensions, and will immediately be eligible for work.

She urged Mexicans to “remain calm and keep a cool head” regarding relations with President Trump and his administration more broadly, from deportations to the threat of tariffs.

“With Mexico, I think we’re doing very well,” President Trump said in a video address at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. The two neighbors may yet find an effective solution to the immigration issue that is acceptable to both – President Sheinbaum said the key is dialogue and keeping the channels of communication open.

Undoubtedly, she recognizes President Trump’s potential declaration of an emergency on the US border, may be located in Mexico.

An estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the U.S., and the prospect of a mass return could quickly saturate and overwhelm border cities like Juárez and Tijuana.

This is a problem that worries José María García Lara, director of the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana. Showing me around the facility, which is already nearing capacity, he says there are very few places it can accommodate more families.

“If we need to, we can put people in the kitchen or the library,” he says.

There comes a point when there is simply no room left – and donations of food, medical supplies, blankets and hygiene products will be stretched too thin.

“We are hit on two fronts. First, the arrival of Mexicans and other migrants fleeing violence,” says Mr. Garcia.

“But we’re also going to have mass deportations. We don’t know how many people are going to come across the border that need our help. Together, those two things could create a huge problem.”

In addition, another key part of Mr. Trump’s executive orders includes a policy called “Remain in Mexico,” under which immigrants waiting for a date to make their asylum cases in a U.S. immigration court would have to stay in Mexico. ahead of these appointments.

While “stay in Mexico” used to be in place, during Trump’s first term and under the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, Mexican border towns have struggled to cope.

Human rights groups have also repeatedly publicized the risks migrants are exposed to by being forced to wait in dangerous cities where drug-related crime is rampant.

This time, Sheinbaum made it clear that Mexico did not agree to the plan and would not accept any non-Mexican asylum seekers from the US while awaiting an asylum hearing. Of course, “staying in Mexico” only works if Mexico is willing to comply. So far he has drawn the line.

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

Meanwhile, in Tijuana, Mexican soldiers are helping to prepare for the aftermath. Authorities have prepared an event center called Flamingo with 1,800 beds for returnees and troops bringing supplies, setting up kitchens and showers.

As President Trump signed executive orders on Monday, a van drove through a gate at the Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, carrying several deportees.

Several journalists gathered to try to talk, allegedly, the first deportees of the Trump era. However, it was just a routine deportation that had likely been in the pipeline for weeks and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing in front of a cheering crowd in Washington.

Still, symbolically, as the van drove past the waiting media to the government-run shelter, they were the first of many.

Mexico will have its work cut out for them to receive them, accommodate them and find them a place in a country that has not been seen since they left their children behind.