More than 50 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have received welfare so far this year, a Mexican official announced Wednesday.
El Universal reported that the 53 immigrants have been receiving the benefits from Mexico City. Amalia Garcia, secretary of labor and labor promotion, told El Universal that the beneficiaries have all been men.
Garcia added that 134 people are returning weekly in flights to Mexico City, and that — regardless if they are from the capital or not — they are offered welfare. The welfare they receive is 2,264 pesos, the equivalent of around $110, a month for half a year. The deported illegal immigrants are also offered job training and access to job fairs.
The Associated Press also reported Wednesday that Mexican immigration experts are bracing for the possibility of refugee camps around the nation’s northern border, as a DHS memo signed Monday authorizes the deportation of illegal immigrants to the country they entered from, not back to their homeland.
“Just look at the case of the Haitians in Tijuana, what were they, seven or eight thousand? And the situation was just out of control. Now imagine a situation 10 or 15 times that size. There aren’t enough resources to maintain them,” Alejandro Hope, a Mexico City-based security analyst, told the AP.
Mexico was inundated throughout all of 2016 by a surge of African and Haitian migrants seeking to get to the U.S.