Mexico revives fear of Donald Trump. Campaign promises about “the largest deportation in history” of the man who will return to the White House on January 20 have stirred the waters south of the Rio Grande. The Republican magnate became president of the United States with the speech of a mass expulsion of migrants. The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, responded this Thursday: “Obviously, we do not agree that migrants are treated as criminals. That is why justice institutions exist anywhere in the world.” The Morenista, in power since last October 1, has guaranteed that “in case there are deportations, we are going to receive the Mexicans and we have a plan for it.”
Sheinbaum has launched a public speech in support of migrants in the face of the criminalizing words of his American counterpart. On Wednesday, during the national commemoration of the Mexican Revolution, the president declared: “Our countrymen and women are heroes and heroines, workers who support their families and the economy of Mexico, but also, let it be heard loud and clear, they contribute to the economy of the United States.” Along the same lines, this Thursday he added: “Yesterday I made a special emphasis, and we are going to continue doing it, and we have quantified it, and we are going to present it publicly at the time and when we have meetings with President Trump’s team, about the importance of the work that Mexicans do in the United States: how many resources they pay in taxes, the work they do is first class, the need in the United States for these workers.”
Trump makes a lot of noise but gives little data. No one, not his close team, nor his colleagues in the Republican Party, really knows how to land the vague idea of a mass deportation. Economists and other Republicans alike have pleaded with the new president to go back on his words. In a way, the pro-Trump vote was a kind of anti-immigration referendum, one of the biggest concerns of Americans, but their society functions thanks to the cheap labor of undocumented workers. “We are going to work to demonstrate that there is no reason to deport our compatriots who are on the other side of the border, who, on the contrary, even benefit the United States economy,” Sheinbaum has supported this idea. According to the Migration Policy InstituteMexicans constitute 23% of the 47.8 million legal migrants in the United States and 45% of the 11 million undocumented people.
In many ways, such mass deportation is not feasible. Economically, it would mean a disaster for the United States close to recession. A 2015 study prepared by the American Action Forum, a think tank economic center, calculated that identifying, detaining, transporting, processing, holding and, finally, expelling, would cost $18,214 per migrant, $24,094 today if inflation is taken into account. Trump claims to have counted 20 million illegal migrants, despite the fact that official government numbers speak of 11 million. The cost amounts, according to this estimate, to 481,000 million dollars. ICE, the agency that carries out deportations, and the Customs and Border Protection Office had a joint budget of almost 30 billion in 2024, 451 billion less than what was necessary for the Republican’s plans. Where the rest of the money will come from is a mystery.
Texas, a Republican fiefdom, has already rushed to support Trump with the offer of a ranch of about 1,400 acres or 5.5 square kilometers on the banks of the Rio Grande in Starr County to serve as a base for deportations. It is early to know the real implications of the magnate’s imprecise ideas, but it would not be the first time that his inflammatory rhetoric signs checks that his policies cannot pay.
In his first term, between 2016 and 2020, he deported fewer people than former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton or Republican George W. Bush. Also during his first Administration he promised the construction of a massive wall on the more than 3,000 kilometers of shared border that, according to him, Mexicans were going to pay for out of their own pockets. It never happened. Instead, it threatened Mexico to function as a gendarme and detain migrants who crossed its territory on their way to the United States at all costs and without respect for human rights. It is there, in immigration containment policies and offices, where Trump has the most power of action.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are rushing through Mexico to reach the border before Trump moves to Washington. On Tuesday, November 12, a caravan of 1,600 people left Tapachula, in Chiapas, the largest gateway to Mexico in the south, heading north. A week later, another 2,000 people did the same. At least three caravans have left with the same idea since the Republican’s electoral victory, on November 5. Some estimates say there are a total of 14 so far this year. Those who manage to reach the line with the United States come face to face with another type of wall: the blockade imposed by the acting president, Joe Biden, who at the beginning of summer restricted entries to a minimum.
Sheinbaum has insisted on an undefined strategy that his cabinet would be developing and that he hopes to discuss with Trump in the first bilateral meeting, still undated. “Sometimes with a phrase that has no basis, Mexicans in the United States are accused. I have read somewhere that they say that the president and her team are not prepared. We do have a plan, we are prepared and, in due course, when it is opportune, we are going to have these conversations with President Trump’s team.” Thousands of people are waiting for that auspicious moment.
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