EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican officials have opened a migrant reception center in Juarez after a two-week delay due to wind damage and problems hooking up utilities.
The Mexico te Abraza (Mexico embraces you) tent facility just west of Benito Juarez soccer stadium opened late last week with a notable absence of migrants.
The facility’s kitchen, showers and dormitories can serve up to 2,500 individuals returned to Juarez from the United States, said Mayra Chavez, regional director of Mexico’s Bienestar social programs office. It is one of nine welcome centers Mexico is setting up in cities bordering the United States.
“It is a support and services center to receive our paisanos (countrymen). We want them to feel a warm welcome and know they are coming back to a Mexico that support them and will facilitate their return to their communities,” Chavez told reporters.
Enrique Serrano, head of the Chihuahua Population Council that runs the Migrant Assistance Center in Juarez, said Mexican immigration authorities as of last Saturday are bringing to the tent facility all migrants expelled by the United States to the border cities of Juarez and Ojinaga – south of Presidio, Texas.
The kitchen, showers and rest spaces are open to all, but the plan is to route non-Mexican citizens to a gated federal shelter in Central Juarez and later taken to National Migration Institute (INM) facilities in the interior of the country.
“A handful (of expelled Mexicans) are staying, and others go their own way because they have free transit,” he said. “Foreigners remain under INM custody and will be transported to Mexico City.”
Mexican officials declined several news organizations’ requests to interview deported migrants at the tent facility.
Serrano said U.S. immigration authorities are primarily sending Mexican migrants to Juarez but also have expelled migrants from seven other countries, including Cuba.
INM authorities in Chihuahua have taken custody of 700 foreign nationals expelled by the U.S. since Jan. 20, and 1,700 Mexicans who were released on arrival.
ProVideo in Juarez, Mexico, contributed to this report.
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