Deported and Jobless, One Man's Unlikely Home Along the Tijuana Border Luis Cruz - San Diego Union Tribune
go to original September 29, 2016

Jimmy Benitez lives in a drainage pipe just feet from the U.S. - Mexico border. He had lived in Southern California for 15 years, until he was recently deported. He now lives in the impoverished community of Los Laureles in Tijuana, Baja California.

It's a very different life from the one he had in the United States. Benitez says he used to make up to 300-dollars a week working for various companies in their shipping and receiving departments. Now, he collects bottles and cans and says he’s lucky if he makes a couple of dollars a day.

"I collect cans and I find nice things and I sell them. That’s how I earn money to buy cigarettes and other items," Benitez said.

The 59-year-old says he's been living here for a year. He says he found his current home when he was trying to illegally cross back into the United States.

In the first six months of this year, 264,185 people have been apprehended somewhere along the U.S. border. 49.6-percent of them were from Mexico according to data from the U.S. Border Patrol.

Read the rest at San Diego Union Tribune

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