Sanctuary city is first to take action to find jobs and provide retraining courses for growing number of US undocumented immigrants forced to leave.
Jorge Valdéz Rivera emerged in tears from the airport security doors at MexicoCity’s international terminal, clutching a small rucksack with a few meagre belongings he’d salvaged from his American life.
Valdéz, 41, was detained on his way home from a factory night shift on 20 January – just hours before Donald Trump’s inauguration. This week, he was deported to Mexico after 14 years living in Illinois, where his three children were born.
His removal was expedited thanks to an existing deportation order issued in 2010 after he’d been arrested for urinating in public while under the influence of alcohol.
Recent raids across American cities have generated terror among immigrant communities, and lent credence to fears that the US president intends to make good on campaign promises to detain and deport millions of undocumented people.
Thousands of Mexican immigrants are already being deported every month, with the vast majority dumped in border towns and cities such as Tijuana, Nogales and Reyonsa. Another 400 or so – like Valdéz – are flown to Mexico City each week on unmarked planes, with their feet and hands cuffed until they touch down on Mexican soil.
An estimated 2.5 million undocumented migrants were deported during Barack Obama’s presidency, earning him the nickname “deporter-in-chief”.
But the scale and speed of deportations looks set to surge under Trump’s administration.
And while Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has drawn withering condemnation at home for failing to come up with a coherent response to Trump’s aggressive policies towards migrants, the country’s capital city is taking steps to make the most of the influx of deportees.
In January, Miguel Ángel Mancera – the governor of Mexico City who has presidential aspirations of his own – declared the capital a sanctuary city for migrants deported from the US.
His government pledged to help those who stay in the capital find decent jobs and to offer targeted retraining schemes to tackle the city’s skills deficits and job vacancies.
Addressing Congress on Tuesday, Trump claimed that deportees were “gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities”, but most migrants returning to Mexico City have an average of 10 years’ work experience in the US, according to work ministry data.
“The vast majority of people being deported are productive working migrants, many speak English, whose experience and discipline will increase the competitiveness of Mexico City,” said Amalia García Medina, the city’s work minister.
“We’re preparing ourselves now because deportations are certain to increase,” she added.
García is in talks with business leaders about ring-fencing up to 2,500 available jobs across various sectors for deported people. Officials are also meeting with human resources directors to determine what vacancies companies are struggling to fill, in order to target training courses accordingly.
While some benefits were already available, in January the work ministry set up a satellite office in the airport to offer assistance to deportees opting to stay in the capital. This includes six months’ unemployment benefit, worth MX$2,264 (US$114 or £90) per month, which is just below the country’s minimum wage.
While modest, it’s the only programme of its kind in Mexico, and could make life easier for people like Valdéz.
Valdéz is from a small town in the sprawling state of Mexico, which wraps around the capital. He and his five siblings all migrated to the US as young adults. His wife, a hairdresser, followed later; the couple have three children aged 11, 12 and 13.
Valdéz was hauled in front of an immigration judge after his arrest for public urination.
“I was told to sign a document I couldn’t read because of my bad eye and I don’t speak much English. After, I realised that I’d agreed to voluntary repatriation, but I have children, so I didn’t go back to court,” he said.
Ice agents detained him almost seven years later on 20 January at 7.30am outside his apartment building. He saw his family once, briefly, before he was deported a month later. His children, who are US citizens, are terrified that their mother, also undocumented, could get deported too.
Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women and Migration (IMUMI), said: “Deporting undocumented parents has a huge economic and emotional impact on their American children – it is not in their best interests. People are living in a state of fear.”
Valdéz, who is considering settling in the city so that he qualifies for the work programme, said: “I have to try to re-establish myself here, but I miss my children. If I can’t make it, I will go back.”