A growing number of migrants are weighing returning home rather than facing the consequences of President-elect Trump’s planned border policies, according to a new report.
Mexican officials say between 50 and 100 migrants are now requesting “voluntary return” to their own countries, with migrants either covering their own costs or relying on state funds. Some migrants credit their apprehension to Trump’s plans to eliminate a U.S. government app used to claim asylum with border agents.
“I trust I will arrive before Mr. Trump takes office,” one migrant, Johana, told Reuters. “If it’s not by appointment, there’s always a way.”
President Biden’s administration has used the application to allow hundreds of thousands migrants to schedule border crossings and claim asylum in the U.S. Officials with the incoming Trump administration have said they will eliminate the program as well as re-institute the “remain in Mexico” policy.
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Migrants waiting to receive appointments in Mexico will be stranded there if they don’t get a date scheduled by the beginning of Trump’s term, leaving them to either attempt crossing illegally, remain in Mexico during their asylum process, or return home.
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Thanks to the dangerous cartel environment in Mexico, many are saying they would rather return home.
“I cry every day and ask God to take me back, I don’t want to be here anymore… this is horrible,” said Yuleidi Moreno, a migrant who has yet to receive an appointment.
Nidia Montenegro, another migrant in the same position, said she would choose to return home if she could.
“I am traumatized. If I don’t get the appointment, I will go back,” she told Reuters.
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Officials in Trump’s first administration stressed that its policies were aimed at dissuading migrants from making the dangerous journey through Mexico to the U.S. border. Migrants are often kidnapped and faced with violence by cartels.
Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has says the new administration will both stem illegal immigration and take the cartels “off the face of the earth.”
“They have killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world and Trump is committed to calling them terrorist organizations and using the full might of the United States Special Operations to take them out,” Homan said on Fox News last month.
Reuters contributed to this report
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