Migrant shelters run by religious groups across Juárez are preparing for a crisis ahead of the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
They are shifting their missions and preparing to receive Mexican migrants deported across the border under Trump’s promised mass expulsion of migrants. But at the same time, they are preparing to continue to receive migrants arriving at the border from the south.
“We are expecting that we are going to see a crisis here, again,” Pastor Gigio Heredia, who runs a shelter near the Paso Del Norte International Bridge, said. “People are going to continue to arrive and obviously at the moment they see that the one at the door is closed, they are going to settle somewhere. We are preparing for that scenario.”
Receiving deportees is a shift from the original missions of many of the shelters run by religious organizations, many of which formed amidst the mass arrival of migrants in 2018 and 2022. Before the spaces were meant for migrants to wait for appointments in the United States, but now the shelters will become a layover to make other decisions.
“We are looking at the possibility of receiving Mexican national,” Pastor Juan Fierro García of the Buen Samaritano shelter said. “Although their stay would be temporary, just while they decide what they are going to do.”
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A migrant enters a dining hall at a shelter in Juárez where she is staying, as she awaits an appointment through the CBP One app to petition for asylum in the United States.
President-elect Trump has made many promises to crack down on immigration in the lead-up to the inauguration. The incoming president also promised to declare an emergency at the southern border.
Many of those likely to be caught up in the deportations are Mexicans, as they make up nearly 40% of unauthorized immigrants in the United States.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on Thursday that her administration has developed a plan on the federal level to coordinate the reception of any Mexican nationals deported from the United States. But she did not elaborate on what that plan entails, other than that it was developed in collaboration with Mexican governors.
“We already have a very elaborate plan,” President Sheinbaum said during her daily morning press conference, “but we are going to wait for what President Trump is going to announce to be able to report it.”
South American migrants try to keep warm at a migrant shelter on a cold day in Juárez. Shelters in Juárez, such as this one, are expecting to receive deportees if there is a mass deportation of Mexicans from the U.S. to the border cities of Mexico.
Sheinbaum mentioned on Friday a strategy to prepare to set up systems to allow Mexicans deported from the United States to access social services, employment, and transportation.
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Source: The El Paso Times
