Trump victory stirs anxiety, animus along the U.S.-Mexico border

NOGALES — Just hours after the United States voted in a new president-elect, residents on both side of the Mexican border began experiencing a phenomenon they dubbed the "Trump effect."

A sudden drop in the value of pesos meant fewer Mexicans catching shuttles from Nogales to Tucson, and a painful exchange rate for those wanting to shop north of the border.

Aide Moroyoqui, a resident of Sonora, handed 100 pesos to shopkeeper Efrain Ceron at a casa de cambio on the Arizona side and muttered as he gave her $5.27 in return — down 13 percent in a day.

"Yep, it's already hitting us," said Ceron. "Right now, people are afraid. 'What's going to happen?' But, hopefully, it's going to stabilize."

Nearby, Yolanda Sandoval, 75, of Sonora, shook her head in disbelief. "We can't even buy anything anymore," she complained. "The economy is falling."

Across the borderland Wednesday, an anxious wait-and-see attitude seemed to prevail. Nearly all residents of the twin Nogales cities seemed aware of President-elect Donald Trump's promise to build an impenetrable border barrier — and make Mexico pay for it — as well as his vow to shred the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Both of those platform positions carry deep implications along a border zone known locally as "la frontera," where the economy is sustained by maquiladora factories that grew 87 percent after NAFTA, by northbound trucking from Mexican farms and ports, and by tourism from the U.S.

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'He's not presidential'

Just north of the Nogales port of entry Wedneday, a cluster of seven Mexican women returning from Arizona chortled when asked if they'd like to chat about the U.S. election results. "Oh,we don't have time," one joked. "We're too busy preparing to build the wall."

Trump's stand on border security and trade were key campaign issues, perhaps critical in his victory over Hillary Clinton. Trump didn't just vow to build a nearly 2,000-mile "intangible, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful border wall" at Mexico's expense. He promised the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, stiffer sentences for illegal re-entry and a tripling of border agents.

At the same time, he branded NAFTA as "one of the most incompetently worked trade deals ever."

From hillside barrios in Nogales, Sonora, to fast-food joints in Nogales, Ariz., those words seemed to reverberate amid election post-mortems.

Thirty-one-year-old Danira Amarilles, a Mexican who lives in Sonora with her American husband and two U.S.-citizen children, offered a typically hostile reaction to Trump's ascendance to the White House.

"I really think he isn't right in the head," Amarilles said, after walking her kids across the border to their schools in Arizona. "He's seems racist. And he's not presidential."

Amarilles' circumstances are typical here. Though the two Nogaleses already are divided by a giant, iron barricade, residents remain bonded by blood ties and financial interdependence.

At the Cocopelli Curios store on the Sonoran side, shopkeeper Eric Miguel Espinosa bowed his head while arranging knickknacks for sale. "Today, I feel so bad, so disappointed," he said. "Families are not going to be together."

Like most border denizens, Espinosa is skeptical that an impervious wall can be erected, and he laughs when asked if his government will pay for it. "Hell, no. That won't happen," he says. "Mexican politicians, they won't even share money with the people. Do you think they'll share with Trump?"

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'Will the real Mr. Trump please stand up' 

David Cuauhtemoc Galindo, municipal president of Nogales, Sonora, seemed perplexed by Trump's campaign rhetoric. "There is simply no mechanism for one country to tell another nation it must finance a wall," he said. "I think it was just words in a campaign. But it won votes, right?"

Galindo noted that deportation of millions of Mexicans — many of whom would be dumped at the Nogales port — could produce a tremendous humanitarian problem for a town already suffering from unemployment, poverty and homelessness.

As for Trump's overall impact, he added, "We'll wait and see. But, yes, we are nervous."

Galindo's counterpart in Arizona, Mayor John Doyle, offered a similar analysis. "I've just got to believe once the dust settles we're going to hear hear a different tune from him," Doyle said. "I think that's what the rest of the world is waiting for, too: 'Will the real Mr. Trump please stand up and do an introduction?'

"He's got some challenges," Doyle added. "I hope he's up to the task and does it in a gracious way. Right now, we all pretty much have our fingers crossed."

While anxiety and animus seemed to dominate, they were not unanimous. Nogales, Ariz., resident Guadalupe Alfonso Ochoa, 59, wore a beaming smile Wednesday morning as he declared, "I was first in line at my voting precinct so I could vote for Trump."

Ochoa said he believes new trade policies will bring jobs and stimulate the economy on both sides of the border. He also supports a big wall. "It's already right here," he noted, pointing to the Nogales border. "I like it. They should put more graffiti on it." Asked if he believes Mexico will pay for the wall, Ochoa laughed again. "Oh, that's a great idea."

Still, the prevailing mood along the border was concern mixed with uncertainty. Many wondered aloud if Trump's policy planks and harsh comments about Mexicans were just political rhetoric, or would lead to policies.

Manuel Gaxiola, 52, was skinning prickly-pear cactus paddles and dicing them into nopalitos. "We'll just have to wait and see," he said. "Que sera, sera."