by Todd Bensman at Center for Immigration Studies
Mexico is struggling to manage a swollen population of restive foreign nationals blocked by President Donald Trump’s border policies, a content analysis of recent Mexican media reporting reveals.
Border Patrol sources say fewer than 500 foreign nationals a day now dare even try the border since Trump’s new administration abruptly replaced the prior administration’s mass-release policies with rapid expulsions — down two-thirds from Biden’s last week in office and compared to 10,000-14,000 a day in fall 2023. The new administration also ended the CPB One app-based “lawful” parole programs that had escorted in thousands by appointment, leaving them inside Mexico.
Untold tens of thousands are now blocked in Mexico behind the Trump dam, which will soon be double walled as 10,000 Mexican troops move up to reinforce against crossings, a move Trump forced upon Mexico by threatening a 25 percent export tariff on Mexican exports. All this swift action has left little room for interpretation: The U.S. border is physically closed to most, leaving hundreds of thousands of non-Mexicans effectively wards of the Mexican state.
“We have to tell things as they are,” Enrique Serrano, coordinator of the Chihuahua State Population Agency told CNN Spanish language television. “They will not achieve anything by trying to cross borders in the hope that the United States will accept them.”
“There is a risk that Mexico will go from being a ‘transit’ country to a ‘destination country,’” as a February 2, 2025, Lasilla Orota news analysis, in part, described Mexico’s unpleasant new situation, one long familiar to the United States.
Too late. As a destination country,…
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