Deported Mexicans face shattered lives

Julius Alatorre, an officer for the San Diego border control, says the policy is "to try our best not to bring women or juveniles after dark," but sometimes the women want to go back immediately. The private security firm Wackenhut Corp. transports most of those returned to Mexico, he says. Wackenhut did not respond to requests for comment.

Bejar says she hasn't seen her American-born 15-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter in Montclair, Calif., since she left them with her husband to attend her father's funeral in January in Colima. Now she is determined to get back to Montclair, where she has lived for 16 years.

"I'm going to cross," she says defiantly after being caught with a fake passport. "I don't know how, but I'm going to make it."

A volunteer with the Casa de Migrante standing at the gate offers her and several deported men a ride to the Tijuana shelter.

___

Friday morning

Ten-year-old Edgar from the Pacific coast state of Michoacan stands at the gate and stares ahead with big brown, panic-stricken eyes. Clutching a Sponge Bob Square Pants comic book — a gift from the Mexican consulate official — he tries to fight back tears. He wants to know where his mom is.

Edgar hasn't seen her since she dropped him off the previous day at a female smuggler's house in Tijuana. They spent the night practicing saying his fake name and answering other basic questions in English.

They got in line at the port of entry around 8 a.m. The smuggler told U.S. officials she was his mom and was taking him to school in San Ysidro. They showed a real visa with Edgar's photo on it.

Edgar didn't flinch and said his name perfectly: Manuel Flores. But then the official asked for his teacher's name, and his grandmother's. Edgar stammered. The official asked them to step aside, and then he detained them.

Maria Guadalupe Rios, coordinator of child protection services in Baja California, says parents no longer want to return to Mexico to visit their children for fear they will not be able to get back across the fortified border. So they are increasingly forcing their children to come live with them illegally in the United States.

If a child is returned to Mexico several times, child protection services takes the child into custody temporarily and talks to the family.

"It's a humiliating experience," she says. "It's a noble thing that they want the family to be reunited, but they are exposing them to danger."

Edgar says his younger siblings recently made it and are with his dad in California. His mom is waiting for him to get across before sneaking in herself. But he's afraid to try again.

"I just want to go back (to Michoacan) with my mom," he says after a social worker contacts his mother.

As Edgar peers from the window of a Mexican government trailer, guards from both countries shut the gate once again — silently closing the door on the American lives of one set of deportees before the next busload arrives.

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