Where Will Migrants Go If The Trump Administration Shuts Down The Border? Many To Brazil, Expert Says

As Donald Trump's inauguration day fast approaches, his proposed immigration policies are creating uncertainty and dread not only among those in the United States but also across Latin America, where many decide to migrate on a daily basis due to myriad factors, including economic uncertainty and violence.

Should Trump effectively carry out the "largest deportation operation in American history," the regional impact would be twofold: on one end migrants would be expelled from the U.S. and, on the other, those seeking to enter the country would see their chances to do so dwindle. And perhaps no country looks as poised to bear the brunt of this development as neighboring Mexico and its newly-minted president Claudia Sheinbaum.

So far, the relationship between Sheinbaum and Trump has been marked by both amicable and testy. Trump himself set the tone by threatening Mexico with tariffs unless the country stepped up its crackdown on undocumented immigrants and fentanyl traffic. Incoming administration officials have also floated the idea of a "soft invasion" into Mexican territory to pursue cartels and, most recently, vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" since, according to Trump, "we do most of the work there."

Sheinbaum, on the other hand, has mostly stood her ground, vowing to "always defend our (Mexico's) sovereignty, vowing to retaliate against tariffs and downplaying the Gulf of Mexico episode by saying that Mexicans could call the U.S. America Mexicana," presenting a 1607 map that displays the name.

Nevertheless, Sheinbaum's government has also shown openness to discuss with the Trump the possibility of receiving non-Mexican migrants deported by the United States, a key aspect of its deportation plan. "There will be time to speak with the United States government if these deportations really happen, but we will receive them here, we are going to receive them properly and we have a plan," she said during a January 3rd press conference.

"This is a very complicated balancing act for Sheinbaum's administration," explained to The Latin Times Jordi Amaral, founder and author of the Americas Migration Brief, a weekly brief that covers news and analysis related to migration from across the Americas and Caribbean.

"This is a web of negotiations that doesn't just touch migration but also touches economic issues from tariffs to trade opportunities and nearshoring," Amaral explained. "It also touches security because there have been threats of trying to bring in U.S. security forces into Mexico. So we can expect a lot of vagueness about what may not occur, but how that manifests in specific policy-relevant ways I think it's still a little bit early to ascertain."

Deportations, however, are just a part of the issue for the region. There's also the question of which countries will be poised to be most impacted if, as expected, the next administration deters asylum seekers. We sat down with Amaral to talk about this issue and how the geopolitical map could be altered the upcoming weeks.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity

The Latin Times: What could be the impact for Latin America once the next administration starts deterring asylum seekers?

Jordi Amaral: So I think the first thing worth mentioning is that even if migration drops a bit we're still looking at hundreds of thousands of people, lots of people arriving at the US border. That being said, in terms of migrants looking to other places to go in the Americas or if they continue to build upon migration corridors that already exist, I think one trend worth looking at and worth considering is the role of Brazil.

A record number of Cubans sought asylum in the country this past year (nearly 20,000, according to Folha). Haitians have long looked at Brazil and although Brazil recently put some greater restrictions on access to the humanitarian visa pathway that they have for Haitians, they still have that pathway. And so Brazil is a country that has shown perhaps greater openness than other neighbors in the region especially for these migrants that are coming from more desperate situations in the Caribbean. That's worth noting.

The Latin Times: How about Mexico?

Jordi Amaral: Mexico has historically been a country of origin and not a country of destination for migration. But in the last decade its role as a country of destination has definitely increased and I think we saw that particularly under the first Trump administration. So I think that may well continue and we're going to see people apply for asylum refugee status in Mexico. This brings up one of the great challenges that's faced by Mexico but also other countries in the region which is that the refugee commissions do not have a lot of capacity. So they're not increasing the budget and there's not a ton of capacity. So this is going to be a big challenge because they'll just develop even greater backlogs than they already have.

But in terms of the kind of more positive outlook, I would look at Brazil. Lula has often pitched himself as a global leader in foreign policy and human rights. In fact, across multiple administrations from Jair Bolsonaro to Temer to Lula, they've all adopted welcoming approaches for Venezuelan migrants, for example, and granted prima facie refugee status for Venezuelans.

So they've had a really quite open approach and quite welcoming approach particularly in comparison to their neighbors. We could continue to take leadership and maybe even, fill a void left by, the Biden administration ending and try to take up a mantle of leadership on migration reception, in the Americas this year.

The Latin Times: Are there other players we should keep an eye out for around this issue?

Jordi Amaral I think the other thing worth discussing is that the preeminent challenge is Venezuela and cooperation with the Maduro regime. There are migrants from different countries that are deemed recalcitrant and where it could be difficult for deportees to be returned. But the numbers are not particularly overwhelming for other countries. They are for Venezuela. And so when we talk about this, that's the biggest challenge ahead. And I think that's one of the biggest question marks of this upcoming year and what's going to happen on January 10 and over the course of the next month or two. That's the really big question mark.

It Trump eventually gets to a point where there's negotiations with Maduro to accept deportees then I think the conversation about Mexico accepting third country nationals gets a lot less complicated. Because the numbers are not as overwhelming. And Mexico has accepted limited numbers of third country deportees or returnees from the border in the past. it's just a matter of what's being proposed currently is at a scale that is too much to be able to just say okay to.