Deutsche Welle Interviews Carin Zissis on Donald Trump's Impact on Immigration

Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online and fellow at the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, was interviewed by Clare Richardson from DW News about the presidential victory of Donald Trump. She spoke about what his proposed policies and pledges may means for immigration coming from the southern border and the relationship between Mexico and the United States.

The editor-in-chief highlighted that like in his first presidential term, Trump is again threatening Mexico with tariffs. "What we need to remember is that there are these threats that are happening. There are threats about closing the border. But these two countries are very integrated economically, so this is going to be a huge challenge," said Zissis.

Zissis spoke about the different tools that Trump has used in the past to control the influx of migrants and to send them back across the border to Mexico. "The problem is that Mexico doesn't really have the facilities or the infrastructure to handle this large quantity of people at the border [...] So, on a human rights level, there are severe risks at hand," added Zissis.

Zissis said that she believes that even with Trump's policies, it will be hard to stop people from deciding to head to the United States through its southern border. "Perhaps there will be measures in order to make it more difficult, but it's hard to imagine with the challenges that we can see, with an increase in crime and violence in some parts of South America, with political crises, that it's going to be able to stop migration completely,” she said.

Regarding the mass deportations that Trump has pledged, Zissis said this "would take hundreds of billions of dollars and infrastructure and a challenge to carry all of that out. It’s a difficult task when there are "about 11 million undocumented people with roots in the country,” she said.

Watch the full interview.