Mexico is readying emergency facilities in multiple cities to house the thousands of people Donald Trump is expected to return to the country as part of his planned nationwide campaign of mass deportations.
Government officials, including the Mexican navy, have begun erecting the facilities in the cities of Matamoros and Ciudad Juárez, Reuters reports.
“It’s unprecedented,” Enrique Licon, a municipal official in Juárez, told the outlet.
In Tijuana, meanwhile, state officials declared a state of emergency last week ahead of Trump’s deportation plans and have readied their own facilities in preparation for a surge.
“There is collective nervousness… about the decisions made by President Trump’s administration,” C Jamie Marín, director of the city’s Jardín de las Mariposas shelter, told CNN.
Leaders in the busy border crossing point of Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas, are worried the raft of planned Trump immigration changes will leave vulnerable people stranded in Mexico.
“Organized crime gets stronger with these actions. We see it,” Father Francisco Gallardo of the Diocese of Reynosa-Matamoros told Texas Public Radio. He also warned that Mexico is not prepared to keep the new influx of migrants. “The biggest issue is that smugglers are going to take advantage of this situation.”
The administration has shut down the Border Patrol CBP One app, which let 1,450 asylum seekers a day make an appointment and legally enter the U.S. at set points of entry while they wait for their asylum cases to resolve.
Before the shutdown, an estimated 270,000 migrants were waiting in Mexico for an appointment and are now in limbo.
Trump also reinstated his first-term “Remain in Mexico” directive, forcing non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in the country before attempting to enter the U.S.
Complicating matters further, Mexico has said it has not yet agreed to accept non-Mexican migrants sent out of the U.S., setting up a potential clash with the U.S. over the status of these border-crossers.
In addition to the changes to the asylum system, Trump has declared a national emergency at the border, justifying further physical barriers and deployment of U.S. military personnel, and has attempted to end the constitutionally protected right of birthright citizenship.
Twenty-two states have sued Trump to challenge the birthright citizenship cancellation effort.
