In recent years, despite the fact that research clearly demonstrates that immigrants contribute to economic growth and safer communities, the deportation of immigrants has reached all-time highs.
Locally, deportations are on the rise, too. In fact, deportations from Colorado more than doubled in 2017. This trend carried into 2018, and while the focus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has largely been in urban areas, rural communities like our own have also been deeply affected.
Mass deportations, and the barbaric detention of foreigners in cages, are reflective of a nation in which immigrants have become the scapegoat for a myriad of social problems ranging from fiscal insolvency to criminal activity.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are deported each year, and while we know a fair amount about their experience in detention centers in the U.S., we know much less about their experience after they leave the country.
With this in mind, in January, at the height of the United States’ longest partial-government shutdown in history, I traveled to Tijuana with four colleagues from Fort Lewis College to find out more about the lives of migrants who have been recently deported from the U.S.
While in Tijuana, I volunteered at a migrant shelter named Casa del Migrante, which is part of the Scalabrini International Migration Network, or SIMN. Currently, SIMN supports 250 organizations with the vision of promoting “the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, internally displaced people and seafarers worldwide.”
SIMN is inspired by the life of Beato Juan Bautista Scalabrini, who founded the Scalabrini Congregation in 1887 with the hope of assisting Italian immigrants who were traveling to the U.S. Known popularly as “the father of migrants,” Father Scalabrini dedicated his life to the religious, moral, social, and legal assistance of migrants and their families.
Just across the border from San Diego, Casa del Migrante carries Father Scalabrini’s mission into the 21st century.
The shelter offers a roof and bed to roughly 90 migrants a day. “Casa,” as locals know it, provides migrants with essentials, such as clothing and hygiene products, but it also helps migrants communicate with their families and secure work in Tijuana.
The majority of migrants staying at Casa are deportees, and for many of these individuals, Mexico is a country that they barely know.
Take Miguel, for example, whose last name I’m omitting for purposes of anonymity. Miguel moved with his family to the U.S. when he was 11. And although he is bilingual, English is clearly his go-to language, reflecting the fact that he’s spent most his life in the U.S.
After he graduated from high school in Arizona, Miguel began working for cellphone companies.
“I did well in sales,” he told me. “I worked for Cricket, and later, Verizon. I was living the American dream.”
Despite coming to the U.S. without documentation, Miguel’s family was able to adjust their status through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. For many years, Miguel remained a lawful residence of the U.S., but when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he decided to apply for citizenship.
“You just never know. I thought it was the safe thing to do,” he said.
However, during his citizenship interview, the officer informed Miguel that he was years behind on his child alimony, and that as a result, he was going to be processed for deportation. “The problem is,” Miguel told me. “I don’t have any kids!”
Years earlier, someone stole Miguel’s identity and began living under it.
“They told me that I could fight it,” Miguel said.
The judge in Miguel’s case informed him that he could contest the charges, but he’d have to do so from a detention center.
“And so, after a few months in jail, I gave in and signed because I didn’t want to spend the next few years in a cage. At least here in Mexico, I can work and rent an apartment while I figure things out.”
In Tijuana, which itself is a city of migrants, stories like Miguel’s are commonplace. During my time there, I met people from many different walks of life, but what they all shared was the fact that the border divided their families, their lives and their sanity. For these individuals, there is indeed a very tangible crisis along the border. Their wellbeing has been deeply impacted by the United States’ pursuit of ever-more draconian immigration laws. This crisis requires the immediate attention of government officials, first responders, legal counsel, health care practitioners and NGOs committed to the wellbeing of the less fortunate.
But something quite different is taking place in the U.S., where the border crisis is not so much a humanitarian crisis as it is an implosion of the nation’s soul. This crisis is decades in the making and is best measured by a growing withdrawal from public life as more and more people prioritize individual achievement and accolades over community service. This is what explains the nation’s willingness to cast out people like Miguel as if he’d never been a valuable, contributing member of society.
As political scientist Robert Putnum, who works at Harvard and recently published “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis,” writes, “People divorced from community, occupation and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.”
This moral crisis requires the immediate attention of activists, educators, community leaders and families. And if we are to turn back the tide of extremism, it will also require migrants, like Miguel, who historically have been the engine of social renewal in the United States.
Benjamin Waddell is an associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College.
