Dozens of thin mats are stacked in a storage unit in the lounge at Casa Tochan, a migrant shelter in Mexico City. When the 30 or so bunks in the dormitory are spoken for, guests must pull out the mats and try to find space wherever they can, whether on the concrete floor of the lounge or outside.
Mexico will bear the brunt of these hardline policies.
Casa Tochan is bracing for a massive surge in migrants as a result of what’s happening thousands of miles away in Washington, DC. The Trump administration is moving quickly to transform the president’s blunt anti-immigration rhetoric into concrete policies: blocking migrants from entering the United States and deporting the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the country.
Mexico will bear the brunt of these hardline policies. Not only is this where the largest share of undocumented immigrants in the United States come from, but it’s where millions of migrants from Latin America—and beyond—could end up stuck, if Trump manages to further seal the border. Even before Trump’s second term, the number of migrants seeking refuge in Mexico has surged in recent years.
Mexico, however, has comparably little government infrastructure to assist migrants, let alone millions of potential deportees. While the federal government runs a handful of short-term “migrant stations,” located primarily in the border regions, the responsibility for housing and helping migrants falls in large part to places like Casa Tochan, private nonprofit shelters and aid groups with threadbare budgets.
“Mexico Embraces You”
Casa Tochan was mostly empty during a recent midday visit. Most of the guests were out working under-the-table jobs across the city. Gabriela Hernández, the shelter’s director, says the number of guests at the shelter is lower than it has been in the past, but she doesn’t expect this to last.
“It is very likely that the shelters will fill up again because people are stuck, and because possibly more people will arrive who have been deported,” she told NPQ. “We don’t know if we’re going to have the capacity to serve our deported Mexican population, and it’s not because we don’t want to but because they’re going to need certain things, and sometimes we can’t get them so easily, like accurate information about…how they’re going to be helped and who’s going to help them.”
Mexican government officials insist they won’t be caught flat-footed should the Trump administration move forward with its deportation plans.
Shortly after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who represents the country’s dominant leftist-populist political party, MORENA, announced a policy called “México te abraza,” meaning “Mexico embraces you.” Under this policy, Mexican deportees would receive assistance returning to their hometowns and cities, job placement services and prepaid debit cards worth about $100. Sheinbaum also announced that she would increase the budgets of government immigration agencies by 500 percent.
Those who work closely with migrants in Mexico have greeted Sheinbaum’s moves with a degree of skepticism.
“‘Mexico Embraces You’ is a series of improvised, disjointed actions that try, at best, to show that the Mexican government is paying attention to the public discourse,” said Sergio Luna, the director of a shelter called La Sagrada Familia in a town east of Mexico City. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it useless, but I think it is insufficient,” Luna told NPQ.
While Trump’s deportation plan is still in its early stages, Luna, who leads a network of 23 shelters across Mexico known by its acronym REDODEM, says there are already reports of deportees showing up at Mexican shelters.
A more immediate concern is that Mexican shelters will soon start filling up with migrants who are unable to make appointments with US immigration authorities near the border. The administration has shut down the CBP One app, the main way migrants had booked such appointments.
“What we are seeing, at least in the Mexico City region, is that long lines are beginning to form with people who are…now requesting refuge in our country,” Luna said.
“‘Mexico Embraces You’ is a series of improvised, disjointed actions.”
A Fragile, Disjointed Nonprofit Sector
Mexico’s patchwork nonprofit shelter system shares some similarities with the United States, where nonprofits and religiously affiliated groups have long played a role in migrant assistance and settlement. But in Mexico such groups receive no government assistance, while the country’s civil society sector has a fraction of the wealth and power of its counterpart to the north.
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Further, the United States has by far the largest philanthropic sector in the world, a consequence of its wealth and favorable tax structure for charitable giving. The US philanthropic sector is 100 to 200 times larger than Mexico’s, according to Harvard Kennedy School’s Global Philanthropy Report. In terms of assets, US foundations have close to $1 trillion, while Mexican ones have about $11 billion.
There simply are not many domestic sources of funding for Mexican civil society groups. The rift between them and the government has only grown with the ascent of MORENA and its leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president from 2018 to 2023.
“President López Obrador’s attitude was completely contrary to civil society,” said Alberto Olvera, a professor with the University of Veracruz whose work has focused on Mexico’s nonprofit sector. “He identified civil society with the NGOs, research professionals, and human rights groups that criticized his government for its failed security policies.”
“We are mostly community organizations, and so we have other means of resistance and survival.”
As for Sheinbaum, López Obrador’s hand-picked successor, Olvera says the pattern of “suspicion and rejection” toward civil society continues.
Further straining nonprofit groups in Mexico is the Trump administration’s suspension of a large share of foreign aid, including the possible wholesale elimination of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Much USAID’s funding was allocated in part to improve the desperate conditions that fuel migration in the first place. In one instance of the suspension’s immediate impact in Mexico, several shelters reported that they’re no longer receiving nutritional assistance from the UN-linked International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Solidarity as Defense
Despite the challenging financial and political environment, shelter directors in Mexico insist they will do what needs to be done to fulfill their missions, relying on local donations and volunteers—and lots of gumption.
“We shelters have learned and developed resilience,” Luna said. “We have survived with and without funds because we are mostly community organizations, and so we have other means of resistance and survival.”
Much of the day-to-day necessities at Casa Tochan, including cleaning and cooking, are handled by guests at the shelter. Within the labyrinthine space is a workshop for woodworking and silk screening; the shelter sells t-shirts and other handicrafts to raise money.
The shelter also houses a library and a small infirmary and counseling room, which are staffed by university students and other volunteers. Despite the humble and cramped quarters, colorful murals enliven the space, with images of butterflies, rainbows, and messages of hope and faith. Translated from Spanish, one sign near the sleeping pads reads, “We want judges who defend the weak in the face of the powerful.”
Many residents staying at the shelter these days come from Central America and Venezuela, while smaller groups hail from Haiti, countries in Africa, and China.
While the shelters have no official religious affiliations, many shelters, including Casa Tochan, receive support in various ways from the local diocese of the Catholic Church. Some shelters also get help from US-based nonprofits and religious groups.
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee has sent volunteers to Casa Tochan. In response to the new policies coming out of Washington, the group has stepped up its commitment to support the shelter, Hernández noted.
“It is very gratifying for us to see that they do not share the same racist ideas as their government,” she said. “Far from it: they are taking care of the defense of human rights above all.”
