The Mexican government announced on Friday that it is working to develop a “panic button” for migrants in the United States who think they might soon be detained by U.S. immigration authorities.
The effort involves a cellphone app created in response to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s warnings that he will carry out mass deportations upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2025.
#deportaciones Botón de pánico para migrantes en EEUU anuncia Juan Ramón de la Fuente SRE pic.twitter.com/8GnLbugqVk
— Odilón García (@odilon_garcia) December 27, 2024
Speaking at President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference on Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente said the app will allow users to press a button that immediately sends a notification to previously selected relatives and the nearest Mexican consulate.
Describing the device as a sort of “panic button” for Mexicans in the United States, De la Fuente said small-scale testing has proven that the app “appears to be working very well.”
“The most important thing is that if someone is detained — regardless of migratory status — the consulate is informed and thus able to provide all necessary attention and protect that person’s rights,” De la Fuente said, according to the Mexican news agency Quadratín.
U.S. authorities are obliged to give notice to home-country consulates when a citizen is detained abroad, but the “panic button” would provide immediate notice to more people, expanding the web of transparency.
The “panic button” allows users to choose contacts they would want to notify in case of emergency and pre-load personalized messages to each recipient. A single click would send all the messages by text in seconds.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has pledged to “defend” Mexican migrants at risk of deportation, said the app is expected to be available Jan. 6.
A similar app called Notifica was developed back in 2017 during Trump’s first presidential campaign in which he also spoke about mass deportations. That app is owned and published by United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led network in the United States.
The newspaper Milenio reported that Mexico’s app is being developed with the assistance of the newly established Digital Transformation Agency.
It is not yet clear if the app has a de-activation function that would allow someone to rescind an alert if they are not detained.
The Mexican government began preparing for potential mass deportations as a result of Trump’s victory in the November presidential election.
The government has set up a 24-hour call center to answer migrants’ questions and has added to existing consular staff in the United States, including additional personnel to provide legal help to migrants caught up in the legal process related to deportation, the AP reported.
With reports from Milenio, Quadratín and El Economista
