EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexico on Tuesday continued to prepare for President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations by setting up the first of nine migrant attention centers on the border.
Three trucks carrying what appeared to be components for a large tent complex arrived at a spot called El Punto in north Juarez. That’s the place near the Rio Grande – just west of a soccer stadium – where Pope Francis held an open-air Mass in 2016.
The center should be operational in the next five days and will provide food, medical checkups, temporary lodging and a $98 debit card that deported Mexicans can use to return to their home states if desired, Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said Tuesday in Mexico City.
Other centers are planned in Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Matamoros and other Mexican cities bordering the United States.
“First, the Mexican people should be certain we will always defend our sovereignty and independence. Second, we will always support Mexicans in the United States, our paisanos,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said as she outlined details of a contingency plan called Mexico te Abraza (Mexico embraces you).
The centers are going up as Trump begins to issue executive orders following campaign promises to deport millions of unauthorized migrants from the United States. He also reinstated the controversial Remain in Mexico initiative that forced asylum-seekers from all over the world to wait south of the border for their cases to be decided.
The Mexican government says it has not signed on to Remain in Mexico, but Sheinbaum said on Tuesday her government will assist third-country migrants who find themselves stranded on the border.
“We have our own migration policies, but we also are a humanitarian government. If there is a person on the border – more so now that is cold – obviously we will act with humanity. We will not let people out in the open […] and look to repatriate them if they are foreigners,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference broadcast on YouTube.
The facility in Juarez will hold up to 2,500 people on a temporary basis and is mostly geared toward helping deported Mexicans find their footing after being uprooted from the U.S., then promptly return to their communities of origin, if that’s what they want. The Mexican government is also sending 189 buses to the border — 21 to Juarez — to transport migrants to the interior of the country.
According to the Pew Research Center, many Mexican migrants in the U.S. come from states like Michoacan, Zacatecas, Guanajuato and Jalisco, as well as Chiapas, Veracruz and Estado de Mexico.
Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente said Mexico is prepared to handle the expulsion of thousands of Mexicans from the U.S. because northward migration flows have been low for months.
“We are at the lowest crossing levels – 78 percent less (than last January) – and this means the conditions prevalent on our border don’t represent unmanageable levels,” De la Fuente said.
He added Mexico will continue to assist its citizens in the United States with legal advice and immigration referrals. The 53 consulates on American soil have trained 2,600 employees to assist immigrants in need of help, make alliances with community groups and contract legal services from U.S. firms.
Border Report’s Juarez news partner ProVideo on Tuesday morning documented the deportation of maybe a score of migrants at the Paso del Norte port of entry. Mexican immigration officials did not allow the migrants to be interviewed and a bus carrying some of those individuals was seen departing the premises a short time later.
One official who declined to be named said those deported were Mexican nationals and that the bus was headed to the Juarez bus station. The officials said the day’s deportations were part of a “routine” process typical of the border.
