Mexico prepares to welcome back migrants from US after Trump return order

In the shadow of a large cross, workers and construction workers in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez are building their own little city. A city of tents.

In the old square, under the altar where Pope Francis held mass in 2016, the Mexican government is preparing for the thousands of people who are expected to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks.

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

Men in cleats and baseball caps climb atop huge steel poles to wrap themselves in white cloth, and build a small hut to house both men and women in equal anticipation.

Casual workers, domestic workers, kitchen and farm workers are all expected to be among those sent south soon, as President Donald Trump says the “biggest deportation in American history” will begin.

As well as protection from the elements, the deportees will receive food, medical care, and help to acquire Mexican identities, under the deportee assistance program that President Claudia Sheinbaum calls “Mexico Embraces You”.

“Mexico will do whatever is necessary to take care of its partners and distribute whatever is needed to receive those returned,” Mexican Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said on Trump’s inauguration day.

For his part, President Sheinbaum has insisted that his government will begin to take care of the needs of people who have returned home, saying that they should receive government programs and pensions, and at the same time they should work.

He urged Mexicans to “be calm and gentle” in dealing with President Trump and his administration more broadly — from deportations to threats of tariffs.

“With Mexico, I think we’re doing well,” President Trump said in a video speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. The two neighbors can still find a workable solution on immigration that is acceptable to both – President Sheinbaum has said the key is to negotiate and keep the lines of communication open.

Undoubtedly, they are aware of the pressure that President Trump will have to declare a state of emergency on the US border with Mexico.

About 5 million undocumented Mexicans currently live in the United States and the prospect of more returning home could fill border cities like Juarez and Tijuana.

It is a problem that worries Jose Maria Garcia Lara, director of the Juventud 2000 immigrants in Tijuana. When he shows me around the place, which is about to arrive, he says that it is a very small place that can fit many families.

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

When the time comes, when there is no room left – and donations of food, medical equipment, blankets and hygiene items will be very thin.

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

“Also, we will have a lot of people deported. We don’t know how many people will cross the border and need our help. Together, these two things can cause a big problem.”

In addition, another key part of Mr Trump’s executive order includes a policy known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy where immigrants who are waiting for dates to present their cases in US immigration court must be in Mexico before being processed.

When “Stay in Mexico” was already there, during the first Trump and under the leadership of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, the border towns of Mexico struggled to cope.

Human rights organizations have also repeatedly criticized the dangers of migrants being forced to wait in dangerous cities where crime related to the drug trade is rampant.

At the time, Sheinbaum made it clear that Mexico did not agree to the process and would not accept non-Mexicans seeking asylum in the US while they await their visas. Obviously, “Stay in Mexico” only works if Mexico wants to comply. So far, it has drawn a line.

President Trump has sent about 2,500 troops to the southern US border where he will be tasked with carrying out some of his actions.

In Tijuana, meanwhile, the Mexican military is helping prepare for the aftermath. Officials have also renovated a community center called Flamingos with 1,800 beds for returnees and soldiers who have brought supplies, installing kitchens and showers.

As President Trump signed the executive order on Monday, a minibus swept through the gates at the Chaparral border between San Diego and Tijuana carrying a handful of deportees.

A few journalists gathered to try to talk about, apparently, the first deportees in the Trump era. It was a routine impeachment, however, that was probably in the pipeline for weeks and had nothing to do with the documents Trump was signing in front of a cheering crowd in Washington DC.

However, symbolically, as the minibus made its way past the waiting radios to the government-protected area, this was the first of many.

Mexico will have its mission to welcome them, keep them and find a place for them in a country that some have not seen since they left as children.