By Laura Gottesdiener and Lizbeth Diaz
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican authorities have begun constructing giant tent shelters in the city of Ciudad Juarez to prepare for a possible influx of Mexicans deported under U.S. President Donald Trump's promised mass deportations.
The temporary shelters in Ciudad Juarez will have the capacity to house thousands of people and should be ready in a matter of days, said municipal official Enrique Licon.
"It's unprecedented," Licon said on Tuesday afternoon, as workers unloaded long metal bracings from tractor trailers parked in the large empty lot yards from the Rio Grande, which separates the city from El Paso, Texas.
The tents in Ciudad Juarez are part of the Mexican government's plan to ready shelters and reception centers in nine cities across northern Mexico.
Authorities at the site will provide deported Mexicans with food, temporary housing, medical care, and assistance in obtaining identity documents, according to a government document outlining the strategy, called "Mexico embraces you."
The government is also planning to have a fleet of buses ready to transport Mexicans from the reception centers back to their hometowns.
Trump has vowed to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, which would remove millions of immigrants. An operation of that scale, however, would likely take years and be hugely costly.
Nearly 5 million Mexicans are living in the United States without authorization, according to an analysis by Mexican think tank El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) based on recent U.S. census data.
Many are from parts of central and southern Mexico wracked by violence and poverty. Some 800,000 undocumented Mexicans in the United States are from Michoacan, Guerrero, and Chiapas, according to the COLEF study, where fierce battles between organized crime groups have forced thousands to flee in recent years, sometimes leaving whole towns abandoned.
MEXICO COULD STRUGGLE
The Mexican government says it is ready for the possibility of mass deportations. But immigration advocates have their doubts, fearing that the combination of mass deportations and Trump's measures to prevent migrants from entering the U.S. could quickly saturate Mexican border cities.
The Trump administration on Monday ended a program, known as CBP One, that allowed some migrants waiting in Mexico to enter the U.S. legally by obtaining an appointment on a government app. On Tuesday it said it was reinstating Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), an initiative that forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their U.S. cases.
On Monday, Jose Luis Perez, then director of migration issues for Tijuana, became one of the few Mexican officials to raise public concerns about whether Mexico was really prepared.
"Basically, with the cancellation of CBP One and deportations, the government isn't coordinated to receive them," he said.
Hours later, he was fired in what he said was retaliation for issuing such warnings.
The municipal government did not answer questions about his termination.
"Mexico will do everything necessary to care for its compatriots, and will allocate whatever is necessary to receive those who are repatriated," Mexico's Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said on Monday during the daily morning press conference.
But with sluggish economic growth projected this year, Mexico could struggle to absorb millions of Mexicans deported from the U.S., while a significant drop in remittances could cause "serious economic disruptions" in the towns and villages across the country that depend on such income, said Wayne Cornelius, distinguished emeritus professor at the University of California-San Diego.
On Thursday evening in Ciudad Juarez, some two dozen soldiers worked at the tent shelter near a tall black cross where in 2016, Pope Francis held an open-air Mass, warned of a humanitarian crisis, and prayed for migrants. The soldiers, in the deepening darkness, began constructing an industrial kitchen to feed the deported.
(This story has been corrected to add 'Rodriguez' to the name of Mexican Interior Minister Rosa Icela in paragraph 16)