Trump’s victory raises concerns among migrants abroad, but not expected to stop migration

MEXICO CITY – Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election instantly changed the calculations of millions of migrants or potential migrants around the world.

But perhaps not in the way Trump imagined.

Trump has promised to reduce immigration. But by narrowing already limited legal routes into the U.S., migrants will simply reconsider their plans and turn to hiring smugglers in greater numbers, experts say.

In many cases, this will mean turning to organized crime gangs who are increasingly profiting from migrant smuggling.

The potential victims come from dozens of countries, and many have already sold their homes and belongings to finance the trip.

Venezuelans continue to arrive at the U.S. southern border in smaller but still large numbers. Mexicans made up half of U.S. Border Patrol arrests in September. The Chinese come through Ecuador and make their way through America. Senegalese buy multi-stop flights to Nicaragua and then move north.

The United Nations International Organization for Migration estimates that there are approximately 281 million international migrants worldwide, or 3.6% of the global population. More people will be forced to leave their homes for political, economic or violent reasons, and more migrants will seek asylum, according to the organization’s annual report. He warns that when people can’t find regular routes, they start looking for “unconventional channels, which are extremely dangerous.”

During the first Trump administration, Mexico’s border cities were overrun with migrants. The cartels preyed on them, kidnapping them, extorting ransom from their families, and forcibly recruiting them into their ranks. Hundreds of people arrived every day, and thousands were forced to wait out a potentially years-long process to apply for asylum in Mexico.

The US program, called CBP One, has brought some order after it was introduced by the Biden administration in early 2023. Migrants no longer need to travel to the border to make an appointment and can do so on their smartphones. Once-crowded border shelters are empty, and many families are scrambling to go the legal route.

Trump has promised to close CBP One. He also wants to once again limit refugee resettlement and has warned of mass deportations throughout his campaign.

Although his victory disturbed and worried those heading to the United States, it was not a decisive factor.

Barbara Rodriguez, a 33-year-old Venezuelan, had to sleep Tuesday night after walking more than eight miles in the tropical heat of southern Mexico along with about 2,500 other people from at least a dozen countries.

Instead, she watched the US election results on her mobile phone.

Back in Caracas, Rodriguez helped control an opposition polling station during Venezuela’s July elections. After President Nicolas Maduro announced his re-election, his supporters began harassing her family.

“Either my family’s life will be at risk or I will have to leave the country,” she said. In September she sold the house and left her three children to her mother.

Now her plan to wait for an appointment at CBP One to apply for asylum at the U.S. border is expiring.

“Plans have changed. We have until Jan. 20,” she said, referring to Inauguration Day. She hasn’t ruled out the possibility of hiring a smuggler, she added.

Marta Bárcena, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S. during much of Trump’s first administration, said migrants have lost out under his immigration policies and could happen again.

“Organized crime benefits greatly because the proceeds from human trafficking already equal or exceed the proceeds from drugs,” she said.

Estefania Ramos of Guatemala woke up worried Wednesday at a shelter in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen to us,” the 19-year-old said. “That wasn’t the plan.”

She said she and her husband left Guatemala after a gang threatened to harm him and kidnap her. They waited three months to meet with CBP One. Two months ago they had a girl.

“If we can continue to wait for an appointment, we will,” Ramos said, adding that she did not want to risk crossing the border illegally with a child.

On Wednesday in Ciudad Juarez, several dozen asylum seekers with appointments waited patiently to be called across the international bridge.

Gretchen Kooner, director of IMUMI, a non-governmental legal services organization in Mexico, was in the southern Mexican city of Tuxtla Gutierrez last week, where she found migrant families with young children living on the streets awaiting CBP One appointments.

“They charge their cellphones every day in some makeshift spot outside so they can check their appointments at CBP One… while they breastfeed and sleep in a tent without water,” she said.

“People who need protection really try to do it right.”

Further restrictions on an already complex process will leave vulnerable populations with few options, said Mark Hatfield, CEO of US-based refugee support organization HIAS.

“It will mean that they have nowhere to go because there are many, many countries in the hemisphere where there is effectively no asylum system or where even if you can get asylum, you are not necessarily safe,” he said.

And then there is the specter of mass deportations. Trump has made a similar threat before and failed to follow through, but there are real concerns.

Deportations to countries such as Cuba and Venezuela could be complicated by frosty relations, although Maduro delivered a conciliatory message in Venezuela on Wednesday, congratulating Trump. Lawyers in Haiti on Thursday demanded that countries including the United States stop deportations due to the country’s internal crisis.

And no country will suffer more than Mexico. There are about 11 million Mexicans in the United States, about 5 million of whom lack legal status. Last year, Mexicans sent home more than $63 billion in remittances, mostly from the United States. Mass deportations will shake the finances of millions of families, and the Mexican economy will struggle to absorb them.

Migrant advocates and shelter directors in Mexico said they had not heard of any government plans to address the large number of deportees.

Mexican aid groups “can’t accommodate that many people, and let’s be honest, it’s civil society that’s shouldering most of the humanitarian aid for those deported or on the move,” said Rafael Velázquez García, Mexico’s director. for the International Rescue Committee.

Mexico needs to prepare for any pressure from the Trump administration, said Carlos Perez Ricart, a professor of international relations at the Mexican government think tank CIDE.

“Mexico will have to accept that our country will be a country that deters migrants, whether they like it or not,” he said. “Trump is going to deport thousands, if not millions of people, and he is going to make it harder for migrants to flow.”