❓WHAT HAPPENED: Mexico’s government is dismantling a large migrant shelter in Nogales due to low occupancy, after earlier preparations for a potential surge in deportations from the United States.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Nogales Mayor Juan Francisco Gim, President Claudia Sheinbaum, the Sonora state government, and U.S. officials under the Trump administration.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Nogales, Mexico; announcement made on Tuesday during a press conference.
💬KEY QUOTE: “President Trump has kept his promise and created the most secure border in history. Word of the closed border has spread so far and wide that migrants aren’t even bothering to try and make the journey—they know they will be turned away,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.
🎯IMPACT: The dismantling of shelters raises questions about the scale of U.S. deportations, although current figures indicate the Trump administration may be on pace to match the previous annual high set in 2012.
Mexican officials have begun dismantling a large migrant shelter in Nogales, citing a sharp drop in occupancy despite earlier preparations for an expected surge in deportations from the United States. Nogales Mayor Juan Francisco Gim confirmed during a press conference on Tuesday that the facility would be scaled back significantly. “President [Claudia Sheinbaum] said we only have to keep 200 beds, and we have that capacity and more,” Gim stated.
The Nogales shelter was part of the Mexico Embraces You program, launched to provide temporary accommodations for deportees in border cities such as Nogales and Ciudad Juárez. However, the number of migrants using these shelters has declined, prompting federal and local officials to repurpose the sites. In Nogales, tents that had been set up on municipal sports fields are now being removed.
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson defended the administration’s immigration policy, saying, “President Trump has kept his promise and created the most secure border in history. Word of the closed border has spread so far and wide that migrants aren’t even bothering to try and make the journey—they know they will be turned away.”
The United States is seeing a significant rise in deportations under the Trump administration, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) potentially on track to match the previous annual record set under Barack Obama in 2012. In addition to the growing number of formal deportations, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the overall foreign-born population in the U.S. dropped by 2.2 million between January and July 2025.
Researchers suggest that as many as 1.6 million of those were illegal immigrants who either left voluntarily or were removed.
Image by Mexico City Government.
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