MEXICO CITY — Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election instantly changed the calculus for millions of migrants or potential migrants around the globe.

But maybe not in the way Trump envisioned.

Trump has pledged to reduce immigration. But by narrowing the already limited legal routes to the US, migrants will recalibrate their plans and resort in greater numbers to the employment of smugglers, experts say.

In many cases, that will mean turning to organized crime groups that increasingly profit from migrant smuggling.

Those potentially affected come from dozens of countries, and many have already sold their homes and possessions to finance the trip.

Venezuelans continue to arrive at the US southern border in reduced but still large numbers. Mexicans accounted for half of US Border Patrol arrests in September. The Chinese come through Ecuador and make their way through America. Senegalese buy multi-stop flights to Nicaragua, then move north.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration estimates that there are approximately 281 million international migrants in the world, or 3.6% of the global population. Increasing numbers of people will be displaced by political, economic and violent reasons, and more migrants will seek asylum, according to its annual report. He warns that when people can’t find regular ways, they start looking for “irregular channels that are extremely dangerous”.

During the first Trump administration, Mexican border towns were saturated with migrants. The cartels hunted them down, kidnapping them, holding their families for ransom, and forcibly recruiting them into their ranks. There were hundreds of arrivals every day, as well as thousands who were forced to wait for the asylum application process in Mexico, which can take years.

An American program called CBP One brought some order after it was introduced by the Biden administration in early 2023. Migrants no longer have to come to the border to schedule an appointment and can do it from their smartphones. Once full border shelters have emptied and many families are making every effort to go the legal route.

Trump has pledged to end CBP One. He also wants to again restrict refugee resettlement and has warned throughout his campaign of mass deportations.

While his victory was deflating and worrisome for those en route to the United States, it was not a deal breaker.

On Tuesday night, Bárbara Rodríguez, a 33-year-old Venezuelan woman, was supposed to be sleeping after walking more than eight miles through the tropical heat of southern Mexico with 2,500 other people from at least a dozen countries.

Instead, she was watching the US election results on her mobile phone.

Back in Caracas, Rodríguez helped monitor a polling station for the opposition during Venezuela’s July elections. After President Nicolas Maduro claimed re-election, his supporters began harassing his family.

“Either my family’s lives were going to be in danger or I had to leave the country,” she said. In September, she sold her house and left her three children with her mother.

Now her plan to wait for a CBP One appointment to claim asylum at the US border has an expiration date.

“The plans have changed. We have until January 20,” she said, referring to inauguration day. He did not rule out hiring a smuggler, she added.

Martha Bárcena, Mexico’s former ambassador to the US for most of Trump’s first administration, said migrants were the losers of his immigration policies and that could happen again.

“Organized crime is the biggest beneficiary because the revenue from human trafficking is already equal to or greater than drug revenue,” she said.

Estefanía Ramos from Guatemala woke up worried Wednesday in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen to us,” the 19-year-old said. “That wasn’t the plan.”

She and her husband left Guatemala after a gang threatened to harm her and kidnap her, she said. They have been waiting three months for a CBP One appointment. Two months ago they had a baby girl.

“If we can continue to wait for a meeting, we will,” Ramos said, adding that he did not want to risk illegal crossing with the child.

In Ciudad Juarez on Wednesday, several dozen asylum seekers with appointments waited patiently to be called across the international bridge.

Gretchen Kuhner, director of IMUMI, a legal services non-governmental organization in Mexico, was in the southern Mexican city of Tuxtla Gutierrez last week, where she found migrant families with young children living on the streets waiting for CBP One appointments.

“They charge their cellphones every day in a makeshift spot on the street so they can check their CBP One appointments … while they’re breastfeeding and sleeping in a tent without water,” she said.

“People who need protection are really trying to do it the right way.”

Further restrictions on the already difficult process would leave vulnerable populations with few options, said Mark Hetfield, CEO of US refugee aid organization HIAS.

“It would mean they have nowhere to go because there are many, many countries in the hemisphere where there is effectively no asylum system or where even if you could get asylum, you’re not necessarily safe,” he said.

And then there is the specter of mass deportations. Trump has made a similar threat before and failed to deliver, but there is real concern.

Deportations to countries such as Cuba and Venezuela could be complicated by frozen relations, although Venezuela’s Maduro issued a conciliatory message congratulating Trump on Wednesday. Haitian lawyers on Thursday called on countries, including the US, to halt deportations because of the country’s internal crisis.

And no country may be more affected than Mexico. About 11 million Mexicans live in the US, of which about 5 million do not have legal status. Mexicans sent home more than $63 billion in remittances last year, most of it from the United States. Mass deportations would shake the finances of millions of families, and the Mexican economy would struggle to absorb them.

Migrant advocates and shelter directors in Mexico said they had heard of no government plan to deal with large numbers of deportees.

Mexican aid groups “are not in a position to receive this amount of people, and to be honest, civil society is shouldering most of the humanitarian response to those deported or in transit,” said Rafael Velásquez García , the director of Mexico. for the International Rescue Committee.

Mexico needs to prepare for all kinds of pressure from a Trump administration, said Carlos Pérez Ricart, professor of international relations at the Mexican public think tank CIDE.

“What Mexico has to accept is that our country will be a holding country for migrants, whether they want to or not,” he said. “Trump will deport thousands, if not millions, and stem the flow of migrants.”