President-elect Donald Trump won’t take office for another five weeks, but his election is already sparking a sea change in America’s illegal immigration crisis.
In sprawling migrant camps across Mexico City, people are giving up plans to cross into the United States and instead plan to settle in Mexico or begin the long journey home.
“I’m just going to give up and go back to Venezuela,” said a woman in one of the squalid camps, where thousands of migrants have built tents from tarps and scrap material.
“I have children to take care of,” he added. “I’m just going to go back because, with Donald Trump, it’s going to be too difficult.”
This is a cruel reality for millions of people drawn to Mexico by the Biden administration’s lenient border policies, only to find that Americans overwhelmingly rejected the wrong approach in the 2024 elections.
The young mother of two had hoped to have already entered the United States through President Joe Biden’s “humanitarian parole” program, known as CBP One.
The US Customs and Border Protection has reported that, since January 2023, the federal initiative has allowed 771,000 migrants to enter the US, at a rate of about 1,600 people per day. But that program was also quickly overwhelmed by the volume of applications, creating a huge backlog.
Now, Trump’s transition team says the program will end on the first day of the new administration.
In sprawling migrant camps across Mexico City, people are giving up plans to cross into the United States and instead plan to settle in Mexico or begin the long journey home.
This is a cruel reality for millions of people drawn to Mexico by the Biden administration’s lenient border policies, only to find that Americans overwhelmingly rejected the wrong approach in the 2024 elections.
“I think they’re eliminating CBP One, so I’m thinking right now about going back to Venezuela,” said one man, who has been living in a makeshift tent on the streets of Mexico City for eight months. “I’m just going to stay here until January 20 to see if I can get (an appointment with CBP One) and if not, come home.”
For Trump’s team, these potential “self-deportation” cases offer some evidence that the president-elect’s border security plan may already be working as planned.
Now, they hope that the news of this deterrent effect will spread to the cities, towns and villages of origin of possible future migrants and deter them from making the dangerous journey.
Others interviewed said they plan to find work and live within Mexico rather than return to their even more impoverished countries of origin.
“I’m going to stay here,” said a young Colombian man dressed in a red, yellow and white shirt who had traveled with his wife through the dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama.
He says he’s reluctant to give up now after spending thousands of dollars to smugglers to get this far. His wife agrees.
‘We went through the trouble and expense of traveling through the Darien Gap. “I will seek asylum here in Mexico,” he said. “As soon as I have a job with work to do, everything will be fine.”
A migrant from Angola in central Africa said that for him there is no turning back either; the trip home would be too difficult and expensive.
“I’m going to stay here,” said a young Colombian man dressed in a red, yellow and white shirt who had traveled with his wife through the dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama.
A migrant from Angola (above) in Central Africa said there is no turning back for him either; the trip home would be too difficult and expensive.
“It is not my main objective to stay here in Mexico,” he said in broken Spanish. “But if it just happens, you know, I’ll stay here.”
Trump has also threatened Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, that the United States will impose debilitating 25 percent trade tariffs on her country if she does not send Mexican military and immigration services to end the flow of migrants north.
Mexicans now routinely capture migrants and transport them south to the Mexican cities of Tapachula and Villahermosa along the border with Guatemala.
The United States currently estimates about 1,600 illegal border crossings a day. That’s down from a single-day high of 14,000 just a year ago.
In fact, Mexico started this program in early 2024 at the behest of the Biden administration, but Trump’s tariff threat has revitalized the operation in some regions.
‘The Mexicans don’t want us to go any further. They want us to return. That’s why I stay in Mexico City,” a migrant named Josmer told me.
A third anticipated Trump policy also appears to be having a deterrent effect: the president-elect’s promise to initiate the “largest mass deportation in American history.”
Trump reiterated those plans in an interview with NBC News this weekend.
“We’re starting with the criminals and we have to do it,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “And then we’ll start with the others and see how it goes.”
‘The Mexicans don’t want us to go any further. They want us to return. That’s why I stay in Mexico City,” a migrant named Josmer told me.
Apparently, that message is being received loud and clear in Mexico City.
“He says he’s going to kick all the illegals out of the country,” said another young mother, as she prepared a pot of shredded chicken for dinner. She admitted that there is “no point” in trying to enter the United States illegally.
Not all of the immigrants I spoke to said they would leave immediately.
At least one young Venezuelan told me that he will never stop trying to sneak into the United States after working for six months as a barber in one of the camps.
“We’re going to keep trying, you know, just scale the walls,” he said. “(Trump) says they are going to deport us, but we are going to try again.”