A Donald Trump piñata in the center of Mexico City. Many Mexicans are deeply fearful of Trump's enacting his campaign promises to cancel or alter NAFTA, restrict remittances sent to Mexico from the United States, deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Image by Nick Schifrin. Mexico, 2016.
A Donald Trump piñata in the center of Mexico City. Many Mexicans are deeply fearful of Trump's enacting his campaign promises to cancel or alter NAFTA, restrict remittances sent to Mexico from the United States, deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Image by Nick Schifrin. Mexico, 2016.

Donald Trump's most prominent campaign promise was to build a wall to keep out illegal migrants. Journalists Nick Schifrin and Zach Fannin follow the people who are trying to cross the border (where illegal immigration has recently spiked), and the border guards trying to stop them. They tell the stories of undocumented migrants in the U.S. who fear deportation, and the Mexicans living along the border who worry their daily lives and hopes will be blocked—literally—by the wall.

Schifrin and Fannin also examine Trump's threats to pull out of NAFTA and block billions of dollars of remittances sent home by Mexicans living in the U.S. They report from Columbus, Ohio, a city that lost many jobs after an auto parts plant closed, and then travel to Juarez, Mexico, where the plant moved.

The ironies of the situation are not lost on Mexicans: Trump's campaign promises, if carried out, could devastate the Mexican economy—and exacerbate the very problems along the border that Trump promised to eliminate.

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Migration and Refugees

Migration and Refugees