Some words on the Mexican border have turned off with the days. There are things that nobody says more. “I wish his heart is softened.” “Maybe he waits for his government.” “You can grant an extension, a period of grace, right?” In just one week, Donald Trump has sprayed hope. The new president of the United States has closed the application that served to ask for asylum, has announced a military deployment and 25% tariffs for Mexico and Canada, has tried to remove the right of nationality by birth and has begun to deport. He has also proclaimed: “The Golden Age of the United States begins.” Do not read the same on the other side, where fear and uncertainty do not let migrants or businessmen sleep.
A line of more than 3,500 kilometers separates Mexico from the United States. A limit guarded by drones, movement sensors, helicopters and security agents. In addition, a wall, and, throughout the Texan part, also a river. In spite of that, every day they cross the bridges thousands of trailers loaded with the maquiladora; Mexicans pass to teach, buy clothes or to be born their children, and Americans to go to the dentist and buy the medications that can no longer be allowed in their country. “There is a very complex interdependence, on both sides,” explains Emilio López, researcher at the Chihuahua College, “we are a cross -border community, you cannot separate, even if you want.” And Trump wants.
The president’s speech, which had the migration of Sparring The entire campaign placed the southern border as a kind of territory invaded without law. He was going to order. The first pista arrived in the first minutes of his administration. When he was still giving his inaugural speech, the CBP One application stopped working, canceled all the scheduled appointments to request asylum and left thousands of people at the doors. Some groups were even formed in a row on the border bridges, where they were going to be received after a wait for months. “Playing with one is not human,” summarizes José Loaiza, who left Colombia with his family for the threats, after his son kill. “We cannot go forward or backward, we have stayed as in the middle of the desert,” adds his wife, Margelys Tinoco. There was another future, but he stayed one step.
It is not time to find in Ciudad Juarez someone who knows of horizons. “Neither the American authorities themselves know what will happen, except us,” Enrique Serrano, Coordinator of the State Population Council (COESPO) tells El País that is part of the Mexican immigration strategy, “then, everything is mere speculation.” The one who was mayor of Juárez acknowledges that there is no information on how the announced mass deportations will be: “We know they will be done, but we do not know when, or where, or how much. Are they going to deport a thousand or million?
Just in case, the government is raising in Juarez some tents with the capacity to house 5,000 people. In the field that Pope Francis once arrived is going to receive the deported Mexicans, when they arrive, if they arrive, in groups of hundreds. The canvases and irons do not protect against the wind that these mountains bring or against a cold under zero. But in an increasingly likely scenario, the 32 hostels of the city – the majority managed by religious organizations – will not be enough. Only since Monday, the occupation has risen from 40% to 60%.
The closure of the only system to ask for refuge at the border has left about 3,500 stranded migrants in Ciudad Juárez. Among those who await are the sadness of Sol Petit, a Venezuelan teacher who had an appointment for January 29 and hoped to meet in the US with her children of 10 and 16 years; or the fear of Isabel (fictional name), who left Puebla, in central Mexico, with her three young children after her husband, police, hit her until he almost kill her: “Who was I going to ask for help?” . He cannot return to his town, he explains, in case he needed. In Mexico, 10 women are killed every day.
Violence is what those who came out with the history of their country in tow most. Francisca Morales and his partner, Mercedes, fled from Guatemala after a brutal aggression: “There are still a lot of homophobia, we cannot be.” If they could, they would return. In the two years that have been in Ciudad Juárez, they have been kidnapped for organized crime for nine months, have suffered robberies, extortion, beatings and also a violation. They have made all the complaints before the Prosecutor’s Office and with effort they have started again. “They will say these [migrantes] They walk here very happy, but no, only one knows which cross, ”says the 27 -year -old girl. They no longer want Mexicans, because what do we do if they get us? I prefer to be here suffering in some things to kill me in Guatemala. ”
The return of deportations
Juárez serpentea, elongated, in the shadow of the wall. Full of dust and undone houses, this city was in 2009 the most dangerous in the world, also the most lethal for women. He endured the title a few years while the so -called war against the narco, initiated by the then President Felipe Calderón. He already got out of first place – now is usually in the first 10 – but the wounds resist. Colonies without lighting or public transport, convicted fractionations to which the water does not reach, localities of the Juarez Valle Activist Alejandro summarizes Bun González.
In that scenario, mayors and governors agreed 15 years ago that those deported from the United States did not reach this piece of border. They were cannon meat for organized crime. The agreement was respected until Monday, explains researcher Emilio López. “Trump also fulfilled it in his first term. The last large group of returnees was 38 people in 2020 ″, details the migratory policy specialist at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua. But everything has changed now. In this first week there are already more than 300 Mexicans deported in Juárez, mostly groups of young people, who came out of states squeezed by violence: Michoacán, Chiapas or Veracruz.
Dominic is one of them. He was grabbed by the United States patrol as soon as he cross the wall, a few days before Trump’s arrival. He ran an hour and a half, but they still reached it. He was taken to El Paso detention Center, where, he says, there are more than 1,500 people waiting to be deported. Without laces in the shoes and the quiet voice, he says that he already lived three years in the United States. I worked without papers in the Florida field in 12 -hour days. Even so, it is better than life in Zamora (Michoacán), where he only sees his friends die. He returned to Mexico because his father was very sick, now he wants to go back. “The economic part does not care so much, because in Mexico I can also be stable, but insecurity is too much,” says the boy. Like everyone who tries to enter irregularly, Dominic paid thousands of dollars to a coyote.
“The wall is privatized by the narco,” explains Mono González, “15 years ago any wet could cross, but now that is impossible.” In the town of La Caseta, where the activist has created Okuvaj, the only cultural space for young people of the Valle de Juárez, the wall ends. In this small town, where there is a decade ago that there is no police, there are some of the security houses that organized crime uses to keep migrants until it crosses them. They have the highest walls, barbed wire, they look like wineries. Only they can go to migrants. Only they win with the closure of the CBP One, which allowed to ask for asylum and authorize the United States. Since Monday, its market has not stopped increasing.
A tariff ghost
If someone had doubts about what the position was going to be towards Mexico, Trump cleared them the first day. He announced that 25% tariffs were to be placed as of February 1, he appointed the terrorist organizations posters, announced that he was going to change the name of the Gulf that both countries share and wanted to eliminate until the right of nationality by birth, protected by the US Constitution (an order that a federal judge already revoked him). “This is not going to like Mexico,” the new president said, while signing, one after another, 41 decrees, who also took the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) or the Paris Agreement to fight Climate change.
The United States is the main trade partner of Mexico. Exports to that country are more than 466,000 million dollars a year. In places on the border, such as Ciudad Juárez, 60% of formal employment comes from the maquiladora industry, the companies that manufacture the products that will later cross on the other side. Now, the ghost of a recession among the maquiladoras – only three of these companies in Juárez have closed and said goodbye to more than 4,000 workers – whips the stage.
“Trump is generating a lot of uncertainty,” explains Thor Salayandia, coordinator of the Border Business Block, “due to the threat of a massive deportation, that our city does not have the infrastructure or work to sustain, and for the tariff costs and prices ”. Inflation is one of the clear risks of the so -called tariff wall, adds Marcelo Vázquez, delegate in Chihuahua of the National Association of Importers and Exporters. However, the businessman still asks for prudence not to fall into sensationalism: “I do not imagine a mass closure or dismissal in companies.”
Karen Alba is a project manager in an ophthalmological products maquiladora in Juarez. In their company they already begin to prepare for a much more aggressive economic policy. A concern for his family is added to the fear of cuts. His children were born, like many on this border, in hospitals of El Paso. Now he doubts that they can continue their education in the United States for the restrictions of the president. “Trump’s consequences have been immediate, he has gotten into my work and in my house.” And the new president only has been a week.
