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A Mexican city across the border from Texas is preparing itself for an influx of deportees as President Donald Trump vows to get tough on undocumented migrants.
The Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo receives more deportees from the U.S. than any other city, according to the data from Tamaulipas Institute for Migrants.
Between January and July of 2016, 45 percent of U.S. deportees arrived in the border city and the number is expected to increase in 2017.
Aaron Mendez runs the Amar migrant shelter and told Reuters that many deportees who are arriving have left behind family in the United States.
"The deportee arrives stressed, with the problem of leaving behind family, leaving behind their children and they arrive with the thought of what is going to happen next," he said.
President Donald Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to end the practice known as "catch and release" and deport all illegal immigrants, even if they have not committed serious crimes or pose any danger.
House painter Lazaro Velazquez was jailed and deported from the United States after reportedly breaking his probation.
"I broke probation and they came for me at work," he said.
Velazquez had been working in the United States for years and leaves behind a son who is serving in the US military.
"I worked for many years and in the year they ran me out of the United States," he added.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has vowed to offer necessary assistance to nationals deported from the United States. Local groups in the northern state of Tamaulipas have also boosted coordination with local shelters to officer help.
"In the United States there is a significant number of (people being) rounded up and detained. They haven't arrived in the same way that they arrive, perhaps they are in detention centres, perhaps they are being given the right to appeal their detention. However, we have coordinated with migrant shelters for a place (for them) to stay," said Jose Carmona, Director for Tamaulipas Institute for Migrants.
According to Pew, more than 16 million Mexican migrants have migrated to the United States in the last 50 years.
But the research body has also found that in recent years the number of Mexican immigrants living in the US illegally has been declining.
