Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

Source: AP

Mexico raised sprawling tents on the US border Wednesday as it braced for President Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to carry out mass deportations. In an empty lot tight against the border with El Paso, Texas, cranes lifted metal frames for tent shelters in Ciudad Juárez.

Enrique Serrano, an official in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juárez is located, said the tents erected for Mexican deportees were just the initial phase of a potential larger operation, and something authorities would scale up if the number of migrants gathering on the border continued to mount. He suggested migrants from other countries expelled from the US would be relocated to Mexico City or southern regions of Mexico as they’ve done previously.

Nogales, Mexico — across from Nogales, Arizona — announced that it would build shelters on soccer fields and in a gymnasium. The border cities of Matamoros and Piedras Negras have launched similar efforts.

At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday night, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a group that was arrested that morning in farm fields near Denver. Another man said he was in a group that had been brought from Oregon. Everyone carried their belongings in a small orange bag.

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