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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Mexico Tries to Help Deportees |
| 2008-02-09 |
| Carlos Martinez was in a state of total panic after being deported from the United States to the Mexican border city of Matamoros - he had no money, nowhere to go, and, worst of all, he didn't speak Spanish. The 30-year-old New Yorker had left Mexico as a baby; when the Department of Homeland Security sent him south last May after he had served a prison term for "dating" a minor, he landed in a foreign land. Foreign? How can Mexico be a foreign land if you are a Mexican citizen? I don't care how long you were there under clearly illegal circumstances, don't forget you were in the US illegally, and there are no longer children involved here. BTW: What was your Social Security Number there? "I was crying when I went over the border. It was just a big joke to the U.S. immigration officials to have this Mexican who doesn't speak Spanish. But I was terrified," Martinez said. Well, it is a joke. Can't blame them for laughing. Eventually, a fellow deportee invited Martinez to his family home in Santa Maria Zoyatla, a dirt-poor village of corn farmers, and they hitchhiked 1,000 miles south from the border. Having worked as a limo driver in New York, Martinez had no idea how to work the land, and after a few months he moved onto a nearby town to sell clothes in a market. Couldn't find work as a limo driver? Martinez is one of a rising number of deportees arriving in Mexico with little connection to their ancestral homeland, often I wonder how many of them have been deported more than once. The influx has prompted President Felipe Calderon to announce a new program called "Humane Repatriation," to help reintegrate the deportees into society. The program will organize refuge centers in border cities, transport to hometowns and jobs for the deportees, immigration officials say. Hometowns? You mean the addresses where they have been sending half of their paychecks for the last 20 years? "Some of these people are arriving in Mexico's border cities with nothing but the clothes they have on That's a funny way of saying that you have no choice but to accept Mexican citizens back into Mexico. Calderon has been less vocal in taking up immigration issues with Washington than was his predecessor Vicente Fox, who lobbied unsuccessfully for a guest-worker program. Instead, Calderon says he wants to focus on making Mexico more attractive for them to stay. And his Humane Repatriation program has been welcomed by many who work with the deportees in the border cities. Yay! I'm starting to like Calderon. More logic, less chiseling. He is working within the limits of what seems to me to be legitimate law. "We definitely need more government co-ordination on this issue," said Blanca Navarrette, who works at the Casa Migrante migrant shelter in Juarez. "The deportees arrive with a lot of difficulties. They don't even have basic Mexican identification." Denial at its finest. But some say Calderon's program may be more style than substance. There has been no special budget approved for it in 2008, and few concrete details have been revealed. Furthermore, offering deportees attractive jobs could be wishful thinking in a country where the minimum wage is $5 per day. Perhaps they could pay for these programs by taxing the money their expats in the US send to their relatives. Rep. Jose Jacques Medina, a leftist Mexican lawmaker who was an immigrant activist in California for more than 30 years, says Calderon should be defending migrants' rights rather than easing their landing after deportation. Migrants?! Try formerly illegal aliens! "Calderon is very ignorant of the needs of the migrant community," Medina said. "Even the name of this program - repatriation - is considered an ugly word for Latinos in the U.S. It makes them think of the wave of deportations in the Great Depression." Expats, repats, migrants, illegal aliens, deportees. Regardless of what term you choose to employ and how you whine about the connotations, all of them quack and waddle the same. Get to work fixing it. To ease mass unemployment between 1929 and 1937, the U.S. deported hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, including many who had actually been born in the United States, in what was known the Mexican Repatriation. Most eventually headed back up north as jobs returned. Likewise, many of today's deportees plan to head back to the United States, where they have family and are accustomed to earning higher wages. Deport the lot of them the second time around and it won't be long before that $hit stops. While some plan to trek or swim back, Martinez What does being raised illegally by American citizens have to do with this? You're nuts. And why aren't those citizens in trouble for harboring an illegal alien? Suppose Mexico would keep me if I was there illegally? And God help me if I try to get work there. It almost takes an act of Mexican Congress to get approval for that. Feh. Think reciprocity, man. Reciprocity. It might give you the psychological foothold you need to quitcherbitchin'. "I've become proud of my country and the way people here lend a hand," Martinez said. "I bet if I were deported to the United States, no one would help me out." So who in their right mind would want to return to that hellhole? Besides, that's an unrealistic scenario because you aren't an American citizen. I invite you to get in line with everyone else. You'll have to pay taxes the next time around, but there are benefits of full citizenship. For example, Social Security will provide you with beer money when you can legally retire at 104 years old. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #7 New immigration policy. First time you get caught here illegally, you get deported. Second time, you get load of buckshot to the back of the head.. Also, each time we catch a citizen of ANY country in ours illegally, we annex 1 square mile of their country. Any country that complains, we multiply the land annexed by 10. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2008-02-09 22:12 |
| #6 Good! I like that Mexican attitude. Let's give them 12 million more to help, and let's do it quickly. |
| Posted by: Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2008-02-09 18:19 |
| #5 "They don't even have basic Mexican identification." What? I'm sure someone knows how to make up some quick ID's. |
| Posted by: Jan 2008-02-09 16:15 |
| #4 The U.S. citizens on Long Island are probably cousins who'd been naturalized in the last go-round, not random kindhearted Anglos. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-02-09 12:14 |
| #3 "I was raised by a pack of grey wolves, so legally, I'm a protected species!" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-02-09 10:48 |
| #2 "He was actually raised by U.S. citizens on Long Island, " So what have they been doing in all this mess? |
| Posted by: Varmint Slish8199 2008-02-09 09:46 |
| #1 ...he was convicted of child endangerment for going on a date with a teenage girl. "A date with a teenage girl"? Sounds to me like a plea deal on a statutory rape charge. The deportation was probably part of the deal. Either way, this story was deeeeeeeelicious! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-02-09 09:22 |