Tijuana's Homeless Migrants Hide in Tunnels as Police Raids Get Deadly Jean Guerrero - KPBS
go to original January 28, 2016

Jose Alberto Zavala, known as Chapo, emerges from a tunnel connected to Tijuana's river canal, Jan. 15, 2016. (Richard Klein)

Underneath Tijuana, in miles of dark tunnels branching from a river canal, live hundreds of homeless migrants. Amid rats and sewage, they hide from municipal police who seek to place them in drug rehabilitation centers, in jail or on buses out of town.

Bloodstains and memorial crosses on Tijuana’s busiest highways reflect a dying struggle. The Tijuana river canal is flanked by two highways, La Vía Rápida Poniente and La Vía Rápida Oriente, where cars speed upwards of 60 miles an hour. When migrants try to outrun the police, they sometimes leap into traffic. Some are killed in car collisions. As police launch weekly raids of the canal, the migrants are dwindling in number.

Cesar Jimenez Sanchez has eight children in the U.S., where he lived for three decades as a construction worker before he was deported. He sleeps in the tunnels stemming from the Tijuana river canal, hiding from police he says arrest him while he is standing in the street trying to find work. (KPBS News)

Migrants often have tattoos of “San Diego” and other California cities, where they had families. Many were deported. Unable to adapt to life in Mexico, they moved into Tijuana’s literal underworld, in the canal that converges with the border dividing the two countries. Many cling to the dream of re-crossing. Most lack official Mexican documents. Some use drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. Others are sober. Officials say the tunnel dwellers commit crimes, suffer addiction and hurt tourism.

In an interview with KPBS, Tijuana police chief Alejandro Lares Valladares said he is planning a full-scale clearing operation of the canal. He awaits the arrival of 14 new all-terrain vehicles he ordered last year. He intends to use them to flush out every migrant in the coming weeks. "We’re going to take over the whole ravine," he said.

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