A town near Guatemala’s border is sitting on a migrant time bomb, primed to detonate just after the U.S. presidential election.
The fuse was lit in December 2023, when the Biden-Harris administration dispatched senior officials to Mexico to hammer out a secretive diplomatic deal. With optics, not the crisis itself, in mind, the White House sought to curb images of migrants crowding the U.S. southern border, fearing it could hurt their re-election bid.
Under the agreement, Mexico sent 32,500 troops to round up would-be border crossers in the north, deporting them to southern regions like Chiapas, where they were effectively trapped in towns like Tapachula behind military roadblocks. Freight train access was cut, northern migrant camps were razed, and deportation patrols were ramped up.
At the same time, the U.S. expanded its “parole” program, flying migrants directly from places like Venezuela, bypassing the border chaos. The result? Border crossings plummeted from a jaw-dropping 12,000 to 14,000 daily in late 2023 to around 3,000 to 4,000 by January 2024.
But the problem hasn’t been solved.
The newly-released 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment from the Department of Homeland Security credits the reduction in illegal crossings to Mexico’s increased enforcement efforts. But what if those efforts stop?
Tapachula is overflowing. Local shelter managers admit they’ve been over capacity for months, and a local newspaper publisher estimates that 150,000 migrants—42% more than the city’s usual population—are packed into the area. Thousands more are stacked up in Villahermosa.
Mexico’s strategy has been to distribute the migrant population across the southern regions, but movement beyond Chiapas and certainly not past Mexico City is tightly restricted. I witnessed immigration officers at roadside checkpoints shuttling migrants on buses to nearby towns, but never further north.
Mexico is holding up its end of the deal, at least until the November 5 election. However, more migrants are slipping through the cracks, making it across the Texas and California borders. The big question is: what happens after the U.S. election?
Regardless of who wins, Mexico may decide that it has fulfilled its part of the bargain and open the floodgates. If Donald Trump secures a win, a tidal wave of migrants could surge to the border in the 10-week window before Inauguration Day. Many migrants have expressed fear of a potential Trump presidency and a desperate rush to cross the border could ensue.
The financial burden of this migrant crisis is staggering. Last year, costs skyrocketed to $150 billion, causing devastation in cities already struggling under the weight of the influx, The Post has learned.
The Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that $67 billion came from federal funds, but the lion’s share of the burden was shouldered by states and local governments.
Denver’s City Council slashed $45 million from its budget, including cuts of $8.4 million from the police department and $2.5 million from fire services, just to cover a $90 million migrant bill. Meanwhile, New York City spent $2.3 billion on migrant housing alone between 2023 and 2024, forcing a 5% cut across city agencies.
In South Portland, Maine, property taxes have soared to cover migrant costs, with the mayor even advising elderly residents to re-mortgage their homes. Chicago is now scrambling to fill a $1 billion budget gap, partly attributed to migrant services.
