EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – U.S. authorities on Friday removed dozens of migrants through a border crossing in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and Mexican authorities immediately placed them on buses and drove them south, away from Juarez.
The two white charter buses left the San Jeronimo customs parking lot west of Juarez as agents of Mexico’s National Migration Institute in white pickups with flashing lights escorted the southbound buses.
Mexican officials said each bus can accommodate 50 passengers and that both buses were full. The officials said the passengers were Venezuelan nationals removed from the United States. The buses’ destination was Mexico City, the officials said.
Border Report reached out to Mexican and U.S. officials for comment after 5 p.m. and did not immediately receive an official response.
This would be the first large group of non-Mexican citizens deported from the United States by land since President Donald Trump took office on Monday, promising a crackdown on illegal immigration at the border and mass deportations of those already in the country.
Earlier on Friday, an airplane carrying 80 migrants left Biggs Field in Fort Bliss, Texas, headed for Guatemala, the office of U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, said.
Deportations of Mexican nationals, in groups of 30 to 40, have taken place daily since Monday. The Mexican government on Friday continued to build a massive tent complex in north Juarez.
Video taken by Border Report shows contractors putting up five large canvass tents around large metal poles at El Punto, an area near the Juarez soccer stadium. Dozens of portable toilets are already in place.
It is one of nine so-called migrant reception centers Mexico is erecting in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas to assist migrants deported from the United States.
The centers are not intended as long-term shelters, Mexican officials said on Tuesday, but will serve migrants in need of food, a medical checkup and a place to rest. Bus tickets and a $98 debit card will be offered to Mexican citizens.
President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said her government would assist foreign nationals expelled from the United States on humanitarian grounds and then seek to repatriate them to their country of origin.