Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that she hopes to reach an agreement with President-elect Donald Trump for the United States to carry out direct deportations of migrants to their countries of origin without going through Mexico.
Faced with the possibility that Trump carries out his threat of mass deportations, Sheinbaum said in her morning press conference that her government’s priority will focus on receiving Mexicans who are deported.
The president said she hopes to reach an agreement with the Trump administration so that “they also send people who come from other countries to their countries of origin.”
Sheinbaum recalled the agreement that Mexico reached with outgoing President Joe Biden for the sending of deported migrants to their countries of origin.
As part of commitments reached in 2023, the government of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) agreed to receive up to 30,000 repatriated Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans per month after Biden put into effect a regulation that tightened the requirements to obtain asylum.
The Biden administration signed an agreement in October 2023 with the government of Nicolás Maduro for the repatriation of Venezuelans that Caracas suspended this year after Washington decided to maintain some economic sanctions against Venezuela.
For its part, Mexico reached agreements with the Maduro government for the repatriation of hundreds of Venezuelans and even offered them $110 a month for six months and employment to encourage them to return to their country. It is not known if the payment of the incentives was made. The Mexican government has also carried out deportations of Cubans to Havana.
At the beginning of the week, the Mexican president announced that her government is preparing a humanitarian strategy to assist migrants before they reach the northern border in the event of mass deportations.
In this regard, Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente traveled to Dallas to meet with consuls in Texas on Thursday to define the actions that will be taken to provide legal assistance to compatriots who may be affected by possible immigration measures taken by Trump.
Among the actions advanced by Sheinbaum in recent days is the hiring of more lawyers in the consulates as well as the reduction and digitalization of procedures so that the attention of Mexicans is easier, faster and more personalized.
Since mid-November, migrant shelters in northern Mexico also announced their preparations to receive potential deportees, facilitate their reintegration into the workforce and record abuses against migrants that may be committed on both sides of the border.
Some 11 million Mexicans currently live in the United States, and about four million do not have legal immigration status.
Migration has long been a sensitive issue between the United States and Mexico, and has become even more urgent following Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on Mexican goods unless the country does more to stop the flow of migrants and drugs.
In November, Trump claimed that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop migration through Mexico” after a phone call between the two leaders. Sheinbaum, for her part, suggested that Mexico was already doing its part and had no interest in closing its borders.
“We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between governments and between peoples,” the Mexican president said.
Source: expressnews
