Some migrants seek to return home because they are terrified to stay in Mexico due to Trump’s policy

Nidia Montenegro looks at her phone for hours every day in the hopes of getting a long-awaited appointment with U.S. border officials to apply for asylum in the United States.

Using the government app that Montenegro is using to try to get her appointment, the 52-year-old Venezuelan immigrant in Mexico says she is afraid her appointment won’t happen before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. Trump has promised to eliminate a number of programs that have allowed migrants to enter the U.S. legally.

Thousands of migrants like Montenegro would be left in a precarious situation where they must decide whether to try to enter the United States illegally, remain in Mexico, or go back to their native country.

Considering those alternatives, Montenegro says she would go back home because she is more afraid of the violence she has seen in Mexico than she is of the suffering she left behind in Venezuela.

“I have experienced trauma. Disappointed, she remarked, “I will return if I don’t get the appointment.

The woman went on to explain, “There is always the threat of cartels that kidnap us,” adding that even if she considers going back home, she lacks the funds to do so.

Despite the persistent problems that prompted their migration, including poverty, unemployment, instability, and political unrest, a dozen migrants Reuters spoke with in Mexico stated that they would prefer to go back to their home countries.
The sample size is too small to make definitive inferences about the response of migrants to Trump’s election, and a lot will depend on the precise policies he enacts and how.

Still, it does draw attention to the difficult decisions that many people will have to make after January 20.

Any decision is highly influenced by the violence in Mexico.
When Montenegro landed in southern Mexico from Guatemala two months ago, she was abducted along with two nephews and scores of other people, including children, she told Reuters. The group was able to get away two days later.

She is currently imprisoned at a shelter in the southern state of Chiapas out of concern that local criminals will kidnap her once more.

Traveling north through Mexico is dangerous due to the vast networks of human trafficking that organized crime has created throughout the nation. Violence is rife in Mexico, where over 100,000 individuals are officially listed as missing and about 30,000 people are murdered annually.

Many migrants are coerced to perform crimes, raped, tortured, extorted, and even killed. The risk is increased by the Mexican government’s efforts to limit the flow of migrants at the U.S. border by transporting non-Mexican migrants to the south of the country by bus and airplane.

Requests for response were not immediately answered by the National Migration Institute or the Mexican government.

In the past seven years, the International Organization for Migration has helped thousands of migrants, particularly Central Americans, return voluntarily from Mexico to their home countries, including those who have been harmed, the organization told Reuters. It refused to give precise numbers, though.

Yuleidi Moreno, a Venezuelan immigrant who is afraid to remain in Mexico, said, “I pray to God every day to return me; I don’t want to be here any longer… this is terrible.” She sobbed as she described how she had been the victim of violence, but she would not elaborate.

According to a Venezuelan official with knowledge of migration matters, 50 to 100 of their countrymen routinely ask Mexico for “voluntary return” every week, either on their own or with government support.

“There are serious calamity cases like kidnappings, sexual exploitation, a myriad of issues, and some want to return immediately.”

Others will continue in spite of the dangers, whether it is by paying a human trafficker, joining caravans, or holding out hope of a border appointment with the U.S. authorities.

This week, Johana, a young Venezuelan immigrant, is hoping to go from Guatemala to Mexico. “I trust I will arrive before Mr. Trump takes office,” she said. “If it’s not by appointment, there’s always a way,” she stated.