Nogales, Mexico – Ivan Castro Santos, his wife and their four children, including a three-year-old, have been living in a crowded room for the past four months, waiting for the opportunity to enter the United States.
The young family traveled from southern Mexico to the House of Mercy and All Nations shelter in the northern Mexican border city of Nogales, joined by other migrants from Latin America. Half of these are children. They all have the same objective: to find work and security in America.
Castro Santos, 22, said he and his wife, 19-year-old Fatima Gonzalez Hernandez, decided to leave Guerrero, Mexico, because of “crime and the risk to children.” “To protect them,” she said in Spanish, looking toward her young children.
Thousands of migrants are estimated to be in Mexico hoping to enter the US, including through a program that allows them to use a smartphone app to request a time to be checked, processed and accepted by US border officials. Allows to use. The system was set up by the Biden administration to prevent migrants from crossing the border illegally, but many are now worried that President-elect Donald Trump will make it much harder for them to enter the US.
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Castro Santos said he was concerned by Trump's “canceling of appointments” made by the US government app, known as cbp one“We don't want to risk going back and putting them at risk,” he said, referring to his children. He said that if allowed into the US, his family would like to settle in Houston, where his sister lives. He said he would like to learn to cook and work in a restaurant.
Trump made combating illegal immigration a central theme of his campaign, running on a platform of mass deportationStricter asylum rules and a reversal of the Biden administration's border policies, including an app-powered entry system used by migrants in Mexico. His immigration promises attracted many American voters, surveys showWhich also includes people living near the southern border.
Anna Parada, who was born and raised in Nogales, Arizona, just a few miles from the border with Mexico, said the “main” reason for voting for Trump was his stance on immigration.
“I actually see the Biden administration being a little too lax on immigration,” Parada said. “And with Trump back in office, I believe it's going to be a difference again.”
On the Mexican side of the border, reaction to Trump's victory was dramatically different.
Luz Angela, an immigrant from Bolivia, said she felt “scared” when she learned that US voters had chosen Trump.
“I was scared because they promised in their speeches that they would deport all immigrants,” Angela said in Spanish. “And that will shut down the CBP One application.”
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Angela, a doctor by profession, said she and her 9-year-old son Matias had fled political persecution in Bolivia. She said that after she complained about corruption in the hospital where she worked, she was targeted by the government there.
Angela and her son have been waiting for a CBP One appointment for almost 7 months since arriving in Nogales, Mexico. During his wait, he volunteered as a doctor at the House of Mercy and All Nations shelter, treating fellow migrants.
“We're looking for an opportunity to improve our lives as well as maybe improve the health care system there,” he said. “I really like helping people who don't have easy access to healthcare.”
American officials Worry Trump's election would end a months-long crackdown on illegal border crossings, which followed an aggressive effort by Mexican authorities to stop migrants this year and President Biden's move in June to keep most of those entering the country illegally. It fell after making people ineligible for asylum. Officials have said that could encourage large numbers of migrants to enter the US illegally in the coming weeks, before Trump takes office on January 20.
Alba Jaramillo, a Tucson-based immigration attorney, said Trump's victory and the possible end of the CBP forest system could prompt more migrants to cross the southern border without authorization, including through dangerous stretches of the Arizona desert where few people do so. Trying to do. in America
“They are desperate,” said Jaramillo, co-executive director of the Immigration Law & Justice Network, an immigrant advocacy organization. “I mean they left everything to come north.”
Anjali Patil contributed reporting.
