As President Donald Trump takes office for a second time, it remains to be seen whether he’ll be able to back up his campaign rhetoric regarding mass deportations.
But if Trump does succeed in sending thousands of Mexican nationals to Tijuana in the near future, the city won’t be ready for it. That’s the view of Father Pat Murphy, a Catholic missionary who since 2013 has run the Casa Del Migrante shelter in Tijuana’s Buena Vista neighborhood.
Part of the problem is lack of coordination between government officials and dozens of migrant shelters run by advocates throughout the city, Murphy said.
“The government has not met with the shelters,” he said. “I expect that, if they don’t help us, it’s going to be people in the streets.”
In Tijuana, officials from the municipal, state and federal governments have outlined ambitious plans to open a 10,000-bed shelter where deportees could be connected to social services, job training programs and transportation to their final destination.
Mexican officials certainly have motivation to provide adequate shelters. They want to avoid the street encampments that sprung up when there were influxes of migrants in 2018, 2021 and 2022.
Tijuana Mayor Ismael Burqueño had scheduled a press conference for Friday to provide updates. However, the press conference was postponed until next week and a spokesperson for the mayor had no other updates.
That lack of clarity or even a basic timeline, hasn’t inspired confidence.
“They keep saying they have a place for thousands,” Murphy said. “In the end, they have nothing. They have us.”
Nongovernmental migrant shelters in Mexico haven’t received federal money since 2019 when former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador eliminated funding to nonprofits. As a result, Tijuana’s migrant shelters now rely on private grants and donations.
There remains a lot of uncertainty regarding what Trump actually can and will do.
Deporting millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status is a tremendous undertaking — requiring Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars to hire more personnel, pay for deportation flights and build more detention space.
There are also constitutional questions about whether Trump could order the military to help carry out deportations, or whether sanctuary states like California can protect their immigrant populations.
Special Needs
Deportees require special needs, especially those who have spent decades in the U.S., experts told KPBS.
“What I see during sessions is people overwhelmed after spending so many years over there and now finding themselves back here,” said Anny Lopez, a Tijuana-based psychologist who treats deportees and migrants.
Deportees who left Mexico 20 or 30 years ago will find themselves in a country that is very different from the one they left, she added.
Some are too trusting of strangers, Lopez said as she recalled a story of a former patient who was kidnapped by a cab driver just a few hours after being deported to Tijuana.
“They are very vulnerable,” she said.
Lopez said the first priority is addressing material needs like clothes, food, shelter and a job. The next, more challenging step is addressing the mental health toll that deportation takes on migrants.
Many are separated from their families. They just lost everything from their life in the U.S. Lopez is especially worried for deported men who don’t have a support system or healthy coping mechanisms.
“They’re alone, without their families,” she said.
Should Trump’s promise of mass deportations materialize, all of Tijuana is going to have to step up, Murphy said.
“Tijuana is very hospitable,” he said. “They should remember where they came from, because most of Tijuana is not from Tijuana. It’s from people who came from other parts of Mexico.”
