As Trump Admin Ramps Up Immigration Crackdown, Migrants Stranded in Mexico Ponder On Where To Go

The Trump administration has cracked down on legal pathways to immigration, severely restricting political asylum and leaving tens of thousands of migrants, who had hoped to move to the U.S., stranded in Mexico. Now, they are looking for alternative ways to make those dreams happen.

Throughout the campaign trail, President Trump had promised to "close" the southern border and enact the largest deportation operation in American history. Those efforts are taking shape. In a recent 24-hour period, Customs and Border Protection agents encountered 229 migrants at the southwest border, down from a peak of more than 11,000 daily in the Biden administration, border czar Tom Homan said.

"They heard my words and they chose not to come," Trump said of migrants during his speech to U.S. lawmakers in early March.

But the reality may be more complicated than that.

During the Biden administration, migrants from Latin America and as far away as Afghanistan and China flooded Tapachula, a Mexican city near its southern border with Guatemala. There, an American government app allowed them to make appointments to declare asylum, and then they waited for their turn to cross the U.S. border.

But ever since the president shut down that app, leaving around 30,000 migrants stranded, they have started looking at other options at building a new life, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

Some of them are trying to find work in Mexico— at least until American policy changes— but they face limited choices. There are few well-paying jobs in Mexico's poorest state of Chiapas. Criminals target migrants for extortion and kidnapping. To leave Chiapas, where Tapachula is located, for another part of Mexico requires migrants to get asylum, which can take the country's overwhelmed refugee agency a year to process, according to the Journal.

"There's been a drastic change," said Yurira Salvador of Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center, a group offering migrants legal representation and help getting healthcare and education. "In Tapachula, the conditions aren't there for people to stay. There's a lack of housing, no jobs and an environment of xenophobia."

Other migrants are pondering on whether to stay in Mexico and wait for U.S. restrictions to loosen, or if they should try to find a way to reach Canada or other countries.

"But not Venezuela, said Sugeidi Cabaña, a migrant who fled Venezuela with her two young children in November after President Nicolas Maduro declared victory in an election that the U.S. said was stolen. "While Maduro is there, I can't be there."

Other migrants don't know what to do amid their restricted options. For instance, Michel Barajas, a Venezuelan doctor, said she and 13 of her family members traveled north in September through the Darien Gap jungle, emerging severely dehydrated and hungry, with their feet slashed with cuts. After months of trekking through Central America, they were abducted on the outskirts of Tapachula, held captive until a $100 ransom was paid for each person to win their freedom.

Most of Barajas' family got their CBP One appointments before Trump took office. Except for her and her 10-year-old son. She is now considering going back to Colombia, despite being convinced that her life in the U.S. would be better.

"At times, I feel desperate, being here, alone, without family," Barajas said.

Most foreign migrants stranded in southern Mexico receive little government assistance, driving them to work under the table and live in dilapidated, overcrowded homes, according to the Journal. President Claudia Sheinbaum has offered to assist migrants returning to their home countries as her government braces to receive hundreds of thousands of Mexicans deported from the U.S.

But regardless of the harrowing stories, it seems that the Trump administration is not yet ready to slow down on its immigration crackdown. Over the weekend, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime legislation that allows the federal government to deport migrants without being given the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge.

"By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil," he said. "As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions."