Mexico prepares tents in border cities to receive Mexicans deported from US
Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times
January 23, 2025 at 4:51 PM
The construction of large tent shelters is underway in Juárez as part of the Mexican government's preparation for the possible influx of Mexican nationals deported under U.S. President Donald Trump's planned mass deportations.
Construction of the temporary shelters began on Tuesday, Jan. 21, with state workers laying down the scaffolding for the structures just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. By Thursday morning, the structures were taking shape.
Workers assemble structures for a temporary shelter for Mexican deportees from the U.S. at the El Punto in Juárez on Jan. 22, 2025. The preparations are part of the Mexican federal government's response to the possibility of mass deportations of Mexican undocumented Mexicans living in the U.S.
Temporary structures like the one in Juárez are being prepared in nine Mexico cities along the U.S.-Mexico border.
They are part of the President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo administration's "Mexico embraces you" program, which is preparing to receive those deported by the Trump administration. The plan was announced on Jan. 20, just ahead of the presidential inauguration in the U.S.
The facilities are quickly going up in preparation of any possible mass deportation from the United States.
"There are two that will be finished tonight,"
Sheinbaum Pardo said Thursday as she started her morning news conference. "The others will likely be finished by Saturday."
The center is being constructed on the land known locally as El Punto, just east of the Paso del Norte border crossing. The site is known as the
place Pope Francis visited during in 2016.
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The tents are being prepared to provide potable water, garbage collection, and generators, according to a
government news release detailing the facilities. These shelters will provide Mexican nationals deported with temporary housing, food, medical care, telephones, and assistance with job placement.
Workers assemble structures for a temporary shelter for Mexican deportees from the U.S. at the El Punto in Juárez on Jan. 22, 2025. The preparations are part of the Mexican federal government's response to the possibility of mass deportations of undocumented Mexicans living in the U.S.
The program also makes 189 buses available to assist deportees with transportation to their home towns.
The shelters will be used exclusively to receive Mexicans, Enrique Serrano, the head of the Chihuahua state agency State Population Council (COESPO) and former mayor of Juárez, said.
"Foreign nationals will be attended by the National Institute of Migration," Serrano said.
'Remain in Mexico' and humanitarian aid
President Donald Trump Monday
closed the CBP One app, which during the Biden administration permitted a daily limit of migrants to legally enter the U.S. to petition for asylum.
The following day the
administration announced that it would be re-activating the
Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), a policy from Trump's first administration that required non-Mexican asylum seeker to wait in Mexico as their cases advanced in the U.S.
Workers unload material to be used to assemble a temporary shelter for Mexican deportees at Punto in Juárez on Jan. 22, 2025. The preparations are part of the Mexican federal government's response to the possibility of mass deportations of Mexican undocumented Mexicans living in the U.S.
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Mexico must approve the re-implementation of the policy before any migrants awaiting asylum are returned to Mexico. President Sheinbaum Pardo has signaled that she is likely to accept the policy, which is also known as "Remain in Mexico."
While the shelters in Juárez will not provide services to non-Mexican migrants, there are at least three federally run shelters in the border city that provide humanitarian services to migrants. President Sheinbaum Pardo stated Jan. 21 that Mexico would continue to provide humanitarian aid to migrants from other countries who are at the border waiting in Mexico.
"There is humanitarian aid for them if they arrive to our northern border," Sheinbaum Pardo said. "Yesterday it was -7℃ (19°F) in Chihuahua. How can any government leave someone in those temperatures?"
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Mexico also promised to help any migrants return to their home countries.
The number of migrants arriving to the border in El Paso are at
historically low levels, with the El Paso Sector seeing a 63% drop in Border Patrol encounters, according to Customs and Border Protection data. This decrease is in part the result of Mexican policy that keeps migrants near the border with Guatemala from traveling north.