SPECIAL REPORT: Juarez Office Aids Immigrants Deported From US
JUAREZ, Mexico — For decades, undocumented immigrants deported back to Mexico have found themselves out of the American immigration system, out of money and out of options in dangerous Mexican border cities, often still far from home.
In 2007, Ciudad Juarez started a program to help change that, but the number of people who need help is growing while the funding to help them is shrinking.
Martin Carrasco’s clandestine journey to the U.S. ended in Border Patrol custody in the desert west of El Paso. His journey back home to a small town outside of Cuahtemoc begins in a cramped office in the basement of Juarez city hall.
“I’ve been doing this for like 20 years — going back and forth,” Carrasco said.
But for the first time he will get home with help from the Juarez Office of Migrant Affairs and its director Adriana Cruz.
Cruz said the city-run office helped close to 16,000 undocumented immigrants get back home last year alone, keeping them from becoming victims or perpetrators of street crime in Juarez. They also offer medical care and crisis intervention.
“We treat them with dignity, we give them help,” she said.
Only an hour after the office opened one recent morning, the office’s waiting room was packed and dozens waited outside.
The city pays 100 percent of the cost for a bus ticket home. They also show the immigrants where they can stay the night in Juarez. It’s potentially life-saving help that only comes once.
“We’re not going to be sponsoring them so they can go to another border city and cross to the US,” Cruz said. The office only offers help to Mexican nationals who have been deported.
Just as the Mexican government has redirected funding to help hurricane victims in the Yucatan, Cruz says U.S. crackdowns on immigration law violations will probably double the number they serve in 2009.
Cruz said as long as many Mexicans feel like Martin Carrasco, her office is likely to help many more, a task that gets harder as federal money grows scarcer.
