In Mexico, migrant advocates are alarmed at what’s coming, ,” the Washington Post reports. Sending millions of jobless Mexicans back to towns they left years ago could create chaos in areas already suffering from poverty and organized crime, they say. “Neither the shelters nor the border area nor Mexico are ready for this,” said Héctor Silva, a Protestant pastor who runs the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. Nearly half of the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the United States are Mexican, according to analysts. Deporting them is cheaper and easier than sending migrants back to more distant countries that are at odds with Washington, such as Venezuela. Few countries stand to be more affected than Mexico by what Trump has described as “the largest deportation in the history of our country.
There are an estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. Transporting large numbers back home poses huge logistical challenges — in both countries. There’s a network of migrant shelters, most run by religious groups. But they’re often underfunded. “No one is prepared for deportations of this magnitude,” said the Rev. Francisco Gallardo, a Catholic priest who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. “Neither the governments nor the civil-society organizations.” Though Mexico’s unemployment rate is low, Mexico will probably have to receive a large number of people at a time when its economy is slowing. The economy could face yet another threat from the deportations: a drop in remittances. Mexicans in the United States sent home more than $60 billion last year. Large-scale deportations “could seriously affect the poorest people,” said Tyler Mattiace, an Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. The deportations could also hurt the U.S. economy, which depends on undocumented workers to fill jobs in industries such as construction, hospitality and agriculture.
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