Nogales, Mexico – Ivan Castro Santos, his wife and their four children, including one-year-old triplets, have been living in a crowded room for the past four months, waiting for a chance to enter the US
The young family traveled from southern Mexico to the House of Mercy and All Nations shelter in the northern border city of Nogales, along with other migrants from across Latin America. Half of them are children. They all have one goal: to find work and safety in the US
Castro Santos, 22, said he and his wife, Fatima Gonzalez Hernandez, 19, decided to leave Guerrero, Mexico, because of “the crime and risk to the children” there. “To protect them,” he added in Spanish, looking at his young children.
Tens of thousands of migrants are estimated to be in Mexico, hoping to enter America, including through a program that allows them to use a smartphone app to request a time for screening, processing and admission by U.S. border officials. The system was set up by the Biden administration to deter migrants from crossing the border illegally, but many are now concerned that President-elect Donald Trump will make it much more difficult for them to enter the US in the first place.
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Castro Santos said he is concerned about Trump “cancelling the appointments” offered by the US government app known as CBP One. “We don’t want to risk going back and putting them in danger,” he said, referring to his children. If he enters the U.S., he said his family would like to settle in Houston, where his sister lives. He said he wanted to learn to cook and work in a restaurant.
Trump made tackling illegal immigration a central issue of his campaign, which was run on a platform of mass deportationsstricter asylum rules and a reversal of the Biden administration’s border policies, including the app-powered entry system used by migrants in Mexico. His immigration promises appealed to many American voters, polls showincluding those living near the southern border.
Anna Parada, born and raised in Nogales, Arizona, just miles from the border with Mexico, said the “main” reason she voted for Trump was his position on immigration.
“I really saw the Biden administration being a little too lax on immigration,” Parada said. “And now that Trump is back in power, I think it will be a difference again.”
On the Mexican side of the border, the reaction to Trump’s victory was dramatically different.
Luz Angela, a migrant from Bolivia, said she felt “scared” when she heard that American voters had elected Trump.
“I was scared because in his speeches he promised that they would deport all the migrants,” Angela said in Spanish. “And that he would close CBP One’s application.”
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Angela, a doctor by profession, said she and her 9-year-old son Matias fled political persecution in Bolivia. She said she was targeted by the government there after complaining about corruption at the hospital where she worked.
Angela and her son have been waiting for a CBP One appointment for almost seven months since arriving in Nogales, Mexico. During her wait, she volunteered as a doctor at the House of Mercy and All Nations shelter, where she treated fellow migrants.
“What we’re looking for is an opportunity to improve our lives, but maybe also to improve the health care system there,” she said. “I really enjoy helping people who don’t have easy access to healthcare.”
American officials to worry that Trump’s election will end a months-long lull in illegal border crossings, which plunged this year after an aggressive push by Mexican officials to ban migrants and President Biden’s June initiative to ban most of those entering the country illegally will no longer qualify for asylum. Larger numbers of migrants, officials say, could be incentivized to enter the U.S. unlawfully in the coming weeks before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Alba Jaramillo, a Tucson-based immigration attorney, said Trump’s victory and the possible end of the CBP One system could lead to more migrants crossing the southern border without authorization, including along dangerous parts of the Arizona desert, where some die trying to reach the border. to the US
“They are desperate,” said Jaramillo, the co-executive director of the Immigration Law and Justice Network, a pro-immigrant organization. “I mean, they gave up everything to come north.”
Anjali Patil contributed reporting.
