Mexico makes plans for illegal immigrants amid Trump's promise of mass deportations

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, December 28, 2024

With President-elect Donald Trump's administration vowing to initiate deportation efforts of illegal immigrants, Mexico is preparing a plan to take back its citizens who are deported after Inauguration Day. 

The Mexican government will open 25 shelters along its northern border for deported immigrants, Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda told reporters this week, according to Border Report. The shelters are scheduled to open their doors on Jan. 20.

Six facilities will be in Tijuana, with another two in Mexicali, Baja's capital city. Each of the facilities is capable of accommodating 500 people, and the shelters will either house single men, women or unaccompanied children or families.

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

Subscribe

"This is a strategic plan to accommodate exclusively people who get deported after January 20," she said.

Tijuana’s City Manager Arnulfo Guerrero León told Tijuana’s El Sol Newspaper that the plan was originally to lease sporting complexes, but they will lease warehouse space instead to avoid scheduling conflicts with sporting events, the Border Report noted Friday. 

Ávila Olmeda told reporters that they are taking seriously Trump's promises to launch a mass deportation effort of illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigration and border security were major talking points of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, which criticized the Biden-Harris administration for allowing immigrants with criminal records to enter the country. 

"What we do know, throughout his campaign, he threatened to do this, and since he was already president of the United States, we believe this time he will be stricter and tougher when it comes to deportations," the Baja California governor said. "We are working to get ready and receive our migrants."

The shelters, which are intended to serve as temporary housing for deported immigrants, will only house Mexican immigrants being sent back to their country from the United States. Deported immigrants can stay at the shelters for one or two days before they are sent back home to Mexico, according to the report. 

"These shelters that are being planned are for those being repatriated who are coming from north to south, but no foreigners, only Mexicans, this must be made clear — Mexicans will be welcomed back to their country and their human rights will be respected," Ávila Olmeda stated.

In November, Trump announced that he had appointed former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan to serve as "border czar" in his new administration.

"I've known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders," the president-elect wrote in a statement at the time. "Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job."

Homan, a former police officer and Border Patrol agent, promised during the National Conservatism Conference earlier this year that he would "run the biggest deportation operation this country's ever seen."

The newly appointed border czar, who has served under multiple U.S. presidents throughout his career, has publicly blamed the Biden-Harris administration border policies for endangering migrants and Americans. 

During the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference, Homan highlighted raised concerns about immigrants dying at the U.S.-Mexico border and Americans dying due to fentanyl making its way across the border.

Following the widely publicized death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley at the hands of an illegal immigrant in February, the Biden-Harris administration faced additional scrutiny for its immigration policies. 

In an August interim report, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement highlighted Riley's killer, Jose Ibarra, as an example of the millions of illegal aliens released by the administration who are "committing crimes across the country."

"The Committee's review of Jose Ibarra's A-file reveals that the Biden-Harris Administration's border policies ensured Jose Ibarra's release into the United States nearly two years ago," the report stated. "Despite having lived safely in Ecuador from January 2017 through July 2022, in 2022, Ibarra traveled to the United States, potentially drawn by President Biden's and Vice President Harris's open-borders, no-consequence immigration policies."

While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cited a lack of detention space as the reason for Ibarra's release, the committee highlighted the agency's data, arguing that it could have detained Ibarra.

"As a result of his release, Ibarra was free to commit crimes in the United States, including allegedly kidnapping and murdering Laken Riley in Georgia," the Republican-led committee and its subcommittee noted in the document.