US limit: Trump’s anti-migration course: fear and uncertainty in Mexico

In the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, directly at the border river between Mexico and the United States, several workers assemble bunk beds for 2,500 people in a reception center. From the dusty bottom of the site, 13 huge white tents protrude for deported migrants. The rust -brown border fence that separates Mexico from the USA can be seen right behind.

Tense calm: This is the mood on the Mexican side with a view to the deportation campaigns announced by US President Donald Trump. However, there has been no trace of a large-scale operation by US soldiers for border security or spectacular mass deportations to the southern neighboring country.

“Of course you have to be prepared,” says Santiago González, human rights representative of the city administration of Ciudad Juárez. Trump’s announcements are not taken lightly. But it remains to be seen what really happens in the end.

The “American Dream” fades

In any case, Ciudad Juárez is already a place of migrant dreams. In the most dangerous city in the world, people from Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba are stranded – like Yorwin Colina.

The 26-year-old Venezuelan crossed the dangerous Darién jungle between South and Central America on foot. For four days he was in the rainforest, saw adults and children die in swamps and rivers. He moved through several countries to the south of Mexico. There he managed to make an appointment with the US border authority. The “American Dream” was finally in sight.

Since the drug cartels often kidnap migrants in Mexico to demand ransom, Colina and others who also had appointments were accompanied by Mexican officials the last 600 kilometers to the US border. But when Colina arrived in Ciudad Juárez, all appointments were canceled by the US government – on January 20, the day of Donald Trump’s swearing -in. “I didn’t expect that,” says Colina. “All of my plans were thrown over the pile.”

Dangerous route to the north

The appointment by app was a measure of the previous government under Joe Biden in order to specifically steer asylum seekers to official border crossings such as Ciudad Juárez and contain irregular border crossings. An estimated to live around eleven million people in the United States who have arrived irregularly or have exaggerated their visas. Around three million of them enjoy temporary protection. For a long time, Mexican citizens represented the largest group among migrants. Now significantly more protection seekers from crisis regions such as Venezuela and Ecuador via Mexico come to the USA.

Many pace their lives on the way to the north: hundreds of people die every year, for example from lack of water and heat strokes. Others become victims of criminal gangs.

Hard gait of the new US government

Trump stamps these people as criminals. He speaks of an “invasion” on the southern border. Immediately after his swearing -in, he began to drastically restrict legal entry options. In the course of this, the appointment of the appointment via the app that Colina used was also stopped.

The measure intervened deeply into the asylum process: very many of those affected came to Ciudad Juárez only because of their appointment and are now stranded here, without perspective. Without the app, you have to stay for a long time to address personally. However, border officials are likely to have strict instructions under Trump to dismiss as many of them as possible, especially without prior appointment.

At the same time, the new US government announced a harder gait in border protection. The continued construction of the wall – a central promise from Trump’s first term – is to be promoted. In addition, 1,500 additional soldiers were sent, more could follow.

Trump’s measures live on the cell phone

Many of Trump’s promises encounter considerable legal and logistical hurdles: The responsible US authorities first have to be brought in line, additional resources provided and lengthy bureaucratic procedures accelerated. Meanwhile, human rights groups mobilize legal resistance. But the thrust is clear.

In addition to the difficult entry and the barnation of the border, the new US government also relies on radical deportation pr. Numbers and pictures are published every day by the information based on criminal migrants, which were arrested in the USA.

Many stranded people reach the news about the arrests on their mobile phones. Trump’s swearing -in was a “terrible day”, says Rosa María Parra, employee of the hostel “Casa del Migrante” (house of the migrant). People hugged and cried. “Now you can see on your cell phones how people are deported.”

The actual figures fall behind what Trump had announced in the election campaign as an unprecedented deportation program. But the staging works: The targeted threatening backdrop already seems to have an effect south of the border. Fewer people reach Ciudad Juárez, they prefer to stay further south of the country and now want to settle in Mexico City instead of in the United States.

The Venezoleer Colina is also planning this. “I’m a little depressed, but I hope that there is another future for me,” he says. “If not in the United States, I would like stability in another country.”