Trump destroys life on the border

Some words along the Mexican border have faded with time, and there are things no one says anymore. “I hope his heart softens.” “Maybe he’ll wait until his government is settled.” “He can grant an extension, a grace period, right?” In just one week, Donald Trump has shattered that hope. The newly inaugurated president of the United States has closed the asylum application system, announced a military deployment to the border, threatened 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, attempted to remove the right to birthright citizenship, and begun deportations. He has also declared: “The golden age of America begins right now.” On the other side of the border, fear and uncertainty keep both migrants and business owners awake at night.

A line more than 2,100-miles long separates Mexico from the United States. It is a border monitored by drones, motion sensors, helicopters, and security agents. It is also marked by a wall and, along the Texan stretch, a river. Despite this, every day, thousands of trailers from maquiladoras — factories producing goods destined for the U.S. market — cross the bridges; Mexicans go through to take classes, shop, or give birth; and Americans travel for dental work and to buy medicines they can no longer afford in their own country. “There is a very complex interdependence on both sides,” explains Emilio López, a researcher at the College of Chihuahua. “We are a cross-border community; it cannot be separated, even if you wanted to.” And Trump wants to.

The president’s rhetoric, which made migration a key issue throughout his campaign, portrayed the southern border as a lawless, invaded territory that he was going to bring to order. The first blow came in the opening minutes of his administration. While he was still delivering his inaugural address, the CBP One application stopped working, canceling all scheduled asylum appointments and leaving thousands of people stranded at the doors. Some had already lined up at the border bridges, after waiting for months for an appointment.

“Playing with someone like that is not humane,” says José Loaiza, who fled Colombia with his family after threats following the murder of his son. “We can’t move forward or back; we’re stuck in the middle of the desert,” adds his wife, Margelys Tinoco. There was once another future possible, but it is now out of reach.

It’s not easy to find anyone in Ciudad Juárez who knows what will happen next. “Not even the American authorities know what will happen, much less us,” Enrique Serrano, coordinator of the State Population Council (Coespo), part of the Mexican migration strategy, told EL PAÍS. “So, everything is just speculation.” Serrano, the former mayor of Juárez, admits that there is no concrete information on how the announced mass deportations will unfold: “We know they will happen, but we don’t know when, where, or how many. Are they going to deport thousands, or millions?”

In anticipation, the Mexican government is setting up tents in Juárez with capacity for 5,000 people. The land where Pope Francis once arrived will now be used to accommodate deported Mexicans — if and when they arrive in groups of hundreds. Tarps and iron bars offer little protection from the mountain winds or subzero cold. In this increasingly likely scenario, the city’s 32 shelters — mostly run by religious organizations — will not suffice. Since Monday, occupancy has risen from 40% to 60%.

The closure of the CBP One cellphone app — the only system for requesting asylum at the border — has left about 3,500 migrants stranded in Ciudad Juárez. Among them is Sol Petit, a Venezuelan teacher who had an appointment scheduled for January 29 and hoped to join her children, aged 10 and 16, in the U.S. There is also the fear of Isabel (a pseudonym), who fled Puebla in central Mexico with her three young children after being beaten near to death by her husband, a police officer: “Who could I ask for help?” She explains that she cannot return to her village, as she fears for her safety. In Mexico, 10 women are murdered every day.

Violence is the most common reason cited by those who fled Guatemala, carrying their country’s troubled history with them. Francisca Morales and her partner, Mercedes, escaped Guatemala after a brutal attack: “There’s still a lot of homophobia there, we can’t stay,” they explain. If they could, they would return. In the two years they’ve spent in Ciudad Juárez, they’ve been held hostage by organized crime for nine months, suffered robberies, extortion, beatings, and even sexual violence. They’ve filed complaints with Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and, with effort, have started over.

“They’ll say these [migrants] are happy here, but no one knows the burden they carry,” says the 27-year-old woman. They no longer want to go to the United States and are trying to regularize their situation in Mexico, but Trump’s return to power has also affected them, especially the threat of mass deportation: “I fear he’ll do it, and then they’ll only help Mexicans. What do we do if they send us back? I’d rather suffer here than be killed in Guatemala.”

The return of deportations

Juárez stretches out in the shadow of the wall, full of dust and ruined houses. In 2009, this city was the most dangerous in the world and also the deadliest for women. It held that title for several years while the so-called war on drugs, initiated by Mexico’s then-president Felipe Calderón, raged on. While the city no longer holds the top spot, usually ranking in the top 10, the scars remain. Neighborhoods without lighting or public transportation, gated subdivisions without water, and towns in the Juárez Valley that lost half their population in just a few years and have yet to recover. “They left, they were killed, or they disappeared,” sums up activist Alejandro “Mono” González.

In this context, mayors and governors agreed 15 years ago that deportees from the United States would not be sent to this stretch of the border. They were seen as easy targets for organized crime. The agreement held until last Monday, says researcher Emilio López. “Trump also complied with it during his first term. The last large group of returnees was 38 people in 2020,” explains López, a migration policy expert from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua. But now, everything has changed. In the first week alone, more than 300 Mexicans have been deported in Juárez, most of them young people from states plagued by violence like Michoacán, Chiapas, and Veracruz.

Dominic is one of them. He was caught by U.S. patrols just after crossing the wall, just days before Trump’s return. He ran for an hour and a half, but they still caught him. They took him to the detention center in El Paso, where, he says, more than 1,500 people are waiting to be deported. Without laces in his shoes and with a calm voice, he explains that he had lived in the United States for three years, working without papers in the fields of Florida, enduring 12-hour shifts. Still, it was better than life in Zamora (Michoacán), where he feared seeing his friends murdered. He returned to Mexico because his father was very ill, and now he wants to return to the U.S. “The economic side of it doesn’t matter to me as much because in Mexico I can also find stability, but there’s too much insecurity,” says the young man. Like all those who try to enter illegally, Dominic paid thousands of dollars to a coyote.

“The wall is privatized by drug traffickers,” explains Mono González. “Fifteen years ago, anyone could cross as an illegal immigrant, but now it’s impossible.” The wall ends in La Caseta, a town where the activist has established Okuvaj, the only cultural space for young people in the Juárez Valley. In this small town, which has had no police presence for a decade, there are safe houses used by organized crime to hold migrants until they’re able to cross. The houses have the highest walls, barbed wire, and look like warehouses. Only those in control of these houses can let migrants through. They’re the ones profiting from the closure of CBP One, the system that allowed asylum seekers to request permission to enter the U.S. Since Monday, this market has only grown.

Fears of tariffs

If anyone had any doubts about Trump’s stance on Mexico, he dispelled them on day one. He announced that he would impose 25% tariff to take effect on February 1, declared cartels terrorist organizations, said he would rename the Gulf that both countries share, and sought to eliminate birthright citizenship, a right protected by the U.S. Constitution (an order already blocked by a federal judge). “Mexico is not going to like it,” the new president said with a smile, signing one decree after another, including removing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The United States is Mexico’s largest trading partner, with exports worth more than $466 billion annually. In border cities like Ciudad Juárez, 60% of formal employment depends on the maquiladora industry. Now, the specter of a recession looms over these factories. Since Monday, three maquiladoras in Juárez have closed, laying off over 4,000 workers.

“Trump is creating a lot of uncertainty,” says Thor Salayandia, coordinator of the Border Business Block, “both with the threat of massive deportations — which our city doesn’t have the infrastructure or jobs to support — and with tariffs, which will increase costs and prices.” Inflation is one of the clearest risks of this so-called tariff wall, agrees Marcelo Vázquez, Chihuahua delegate of the National Association of Importers and Exporters. Still, Vázquez urges caution to avoid alarmism: “I can’t imagine a massive wave of factory closures or layoffs.”

For Karen Alba, a project manager at an ophthalmology products factory in Juárez, the anxiety is already palpable. Her company is bracing for a much more aggressive economic policy, while her personal life has also been shaken. Her children, like many on this border, were born in hospitals in El Paso. Now she fears they won’t be able to continue their education in the U.S. due to the president’s new restrictions. “Trump’s consequences have been immediate — he’s disrupted both my work and my home.” And the new president has only just taken office.

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