Some migrants, antic­i­pat­ing Trump’s poli­cies, are already turn­ing back home: report

A grow­ing num­ber of migrants are decid­ing to return home rather than face the con­se­quences of Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s planned bor­der poli­cies, accord­ing to a new report.

Mex­i­can offi­cials say between 50 and 100 migrants are now request­ing “vol­un­tary return” to their own coun­tries, with migrants either cov­er­ing their own costs or rely­ing on state funds. Some migrants cred­it their appre­hen­sion to Trump’s plans to elim­i­nate a U.S. gov­ern­ment app used to claim asy­lum with bor­der agents.

“I trust I will arrive before Mr. Trump takes office,” one migrant, Johana, told Reuters. “If it’s not by appoint­ment, there’s always a way.”

Pres­i­dent Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion has used the appli­ca­tion to allow hun­dreds of thou­sands of migrants to sched­ule bor­der cross­ings and claim asy­lum in the U.S. Offi­cials with the incom­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion have said they will elim­i­nate the pro­gram as well as re-insti­tute the “remain in Mex­i­co” pol­i­cy.

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Migrants wait­ing to receive appoint­ments in Mex­i­co will be strand­ed there if they don’t get a date sched­uled by the begin­ning of Trump’s term, leav­ing them to either attempt cross­ing ille­gal­ly, remain in Mex­i­co dur­ing their asy­lum process, or return home.

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Thanks to the dan­ger­ous car­tel envi­ron­ment in Mex­i­co, many are say­ing they would rather return home.

“I cry every day and ask God to take me back, I don’t want to be here any­more… this is hor­ri­ble,” said Yulei­di Moreno, a migrant who has yet to receive an appoint­ment.

Nidia Mon­tene­gro, anoth­er migrant in the same posi­tion, said she would choose to return home if she could.

“I am trau­ma­tized. If I don’t get the appoint­ment, I will go back,” she told Reuters.

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Offi­cials in Trump’s first admin­is­tra­tion stressed that its poli­cies were aimed at dis­suad­ing migrants from mak­ing the dan­ger­ous jour­ney through Mex­i­co to the U.S. bor­der. Migrants are often kid­napped and faced with vio­lence by car­tels.

Trump’s incom­ing bor­der czar, Tom Homan, has said the new admin­is­tra­tion will both stem ille­gal immi­gra­tion and take the car­tels “off the face of the earth.”

“They have killed more Amer­i­cans than every ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion in the world and Trump is com­mit­ted to call­ing them ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and using the full might of the Unit­ed States Spe­cial Oper­a­tions to take them out,” Homan said on Fox News last month.

Reuters con­tributed to this report.