A dispatch from Villahermosa, Mexico’s open-air migrant prison

An elderly deported man watches the 2026 World Cup at the Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Tabasco, on July 14, 2026. Photo © Josué Leal.

Opinion • Josué Martínez Leal • September 10, 2026 • Leer en castellano

Migrants arriving in the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco, do not do so of their own free will. They are sent to the in southern Mexican city by the National Migration Institute and the National Guard. Their arrival is part of a policy of attrition designed to deter them from continuing their journey north.

This tactic is dehumanizing. It hinges on a logic of detention, transfer, and deportation applied with maximum arbitrary discretion. To understand it, one must recognize Mexico’s asymmetrical relationship with the United States, which has turned Mexico into a “wall,” and transformed migrants into a means of exerting pressure on the Mexican government while making the Mexican state into the enforcers of its immigration policies.

Mexico has taken on the responsibility of receiving not only Mexicans who are deported from the US, but also people from other countries. These policies can be traced directly to the first Trump administration and the implementation of the infamous “Remain in Mexico” protocols, which, during Andrés Manuel López Obrador's six-year term (2018–2024), led to migrants being stranded along Mexico’s northern border.

Gradually, the externalization of the border with the United States shifted further south and to other parts of Mexico, and cities like Villahermosa have become containment zones. Alongside the militarization that took place under AMLO, the southern border also became a testing ground for implementing these control mechanisms.

A Honduran migrant waits for the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance to make a decision on his case outside the Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Tabasco, while a National Guard patrol surveys the premises on May 16, 2025. Photo © Josué Leal.

During his administration, this process was institutionalized. Its arms are the National Guard and the National Migration Institute. Unlike the northern border wall, which is guarded by troops, cameras, drones, and other surveillance technologies, the porous and complex southern border, which is teeming with life and nature, saw militarization take root in its very arteries, not just along the border itself.

They militarized the roads. The highways became checkpoints and immigration control points, and they remain that way to this day. The model is in place: the routes, the checkpoints. The issue now is that there are fewer migrants moving north because the southern route is more tightly sealed off, and the Darien Gap and Latin American countries are aligned with U.S. immigration control.

Tabasco’s political clout

This influx of detained and deported people from countries near and far had to end up somewhere, and today that place is Villahermosa. The reason why could be due to the state’s political landscape, and its ties to former President López Obrador, who hails from Tabasco. He built his political career here before moving to Mexico City, leaving behind a network of alliances and like-minded individuals.

Senator Adán Augusto López Hernández, of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party, was Tabasco’s governor when the Villahermosa immigration detention center was inaugurated. AMLO later appointed him to serve as his secretary of state, and the former president’s relatives remain active in state politics: his brother José Ramiro Pepillo López Obrador is secretary of the state government under Tabasco’s governor, Javier May, who is also from MORENA.

During López Obrador’s six-year term, his administration designated Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco, as a migrant processing zone. Despite its proximity to the border with Guatemala, Villahermosa has not historically been known as a migrant transit point, nor has it been part of the routes used by millions migrating toward the United States.

A group of deported older adults share a meal at a table at the Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Tabasco, on May 29, 2026. Photo © Josué Leal.

Today, Villahermosa has become an open-air prison for those fleeing violence and deprivation in their countries of origin and for those striving for a better life in the neighboring country to the north. They have found themselves stranded in the state as a form of punishment, because they are not Mexican.

To conceive of a prison city is to imagine a territory inhabited by disposable, deportable individuals. Villahermosa is a city that embodies the necropolitics expressed in current immigration policies in Mexico and the United States. These policies, conceived and designed to exclude and concentrate a particular group, are reminiscent of concentration camps.

Today, Villahermosa serves as a geographical space where people have been relocated against their will, in accordance with the demands of a restrictive and punitive control of human mobility.

A light in the dark

Despite the darkness, there will always be a light along the way. It may be a cliché or an absurd thought, but it is real. Here, that beacon of hope is the Amparito shelter—the only safe haven where migrants who no one cares about, the deported, and the stranded can find momentary relief.

Amparito is located in an old warehouse located in the Miguel Hidalgo neighborhood, on the outskirts of the city, on the opposite side of town from the immigration offices and the airport where deported individuals are brought to the city. 

For several years now, I have been part of this complex dynamic, looking after the shelter and the people who come there. I arrived as a volunteer five years ago, intending to help however I could. Little by little, I came to understand the processes within the space and, more importantly, I got to know the people who experience the many facets of migration and displacement. 

Through these encounters with others, I’ve come to recognize the state mechanisms that violate and infringe upon their rights, and to understand that the very act of helping is part of the complex process of people’s journeys. I am now the coordinator of the Amparito shelter.

An elderly deported man sleeps in a makeshift shelter in a public parking lot where he works and lives in Villahermosa, Tabasco, on April 3, 2026. Photo © Josué Leal.

Amparito has two large wings, each divided into seven rooms with 10 beds. Four are reserved for people who are migrants, and three are for patients and family members using the nearby Juan Graham Casasus Regional Hospital.

Among the shelter's services is the provision of breakfast and lunch to those in need. The shelter strives to meet basic needs such as sleep and food, and supports people with clothing and personal care items, primarily hygiene products. We have a legal team that includes psychologists dedicated to supporting those requiring specialized assistance, and displaying specific psychosocial needs.

These personal reflections are a product of the people I have met and worked with at Amparito. This article is an attempt to explain the reality of a macrocosm—a complex system involving states, governments, and institutions.

But there is also a micro-level aspect that is made up of the people themselves, of their very existence and their embodied, individual experiences. 

In Trump’s second term, a new challenge has appeared: the presence of elderly Cuban nationals among those deported. Hundreds of sick and elderly people were deported from the U.S. to southern Mexico.

I call them my grandparents, and a small corner of the shelter has become “Little Havana”. For others, the streets of Villahermosa have become the “New Cuba.”

Some of the lucky ones are able to rent a place with the support of their families in the U.S. Those who still have the strength work in the informal sector. Others, with help from acquaintances or friends, manage to rent a place where they struggle to pay rent. Still others—the most rebellious and unfortunate—wander the streets, enduring heat, cold, and hunger.

An elderly deported man sitting in the courtyard of the Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Tabasco on May 29, 2026. Minutes before the start of church service, he checks his cell phone to see if any family members have contacted him. Photo © Josué Leal.

Their age prevents many of them from moving on and getting around the checkpoints the way young people do. Others seek legal status or apply for asylum—not because they see Mexico as their new home, but because they have no other choice. Some would rather die in Cuba, but their homeland has turned its back on them. 

Their future is uncertain. Some dream of surviving long enough to see Trump leave the presidency—and only then, perhaps, return to the US, the place they called home for more than 30 years.

Today, Villahermosa is a laboratory where the problems of the present and future are foreshadowed. Here, dehumanizing practices give concrete form to hate speech, and as the population pyramid shifts, we may see more cases in which older adults suffer violence and the erasure of their very existence.

Alongside them, grassroots efforts, driven by young people fueled by anger, experience, and insight, work towards rights and dignity.

That's what I see as a real need, a necessity—because, honestly, I'm afraid of ending up without hope or the strength to fight. It's essential that my generation step up to the plate and fight now to inspire the next generations.