American Wives of Deported Mexicans Say They're Excluded from SENTRI Katie Schoolov - KPBS
go to original August 10, 2016

New estimates suggest well over half a million U.S. born children have been forced to make new lives in a country they’ve never really known. (CCTV America)

A community of expatriates is forming in Tijuana: American women who moved south of the border to join their deported Mexican partners and keep their families together.

Many continue working in San Diego or sending their children to San Diego schools, and must contend with two- to four-hour wait times at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the world's busiest land crossing.

These women report being denied access to SENTRI, or Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection, a trusted U.S. Customs and Border Protection traveler program that allows expedited border crossings. They're told it's because they're married to deported men, making them possible human smugglers.

... Immigration attorney Nicole Ramos said there is no policy barring spouses of deportees from SENTRI, but the agency regularly denies it to them in practice because of concerns they may try to smuggle their spouses across the border. “So essentially, you have the U.S. government punishing these families twice,” Ramos said.

Ramos said the wives of deported men are the people who could most benefit from SENTRI because of their cross-border lives. More than 90 percent of the people deported to Mexico are men, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures. Their wives are often the primary breadwinners in their families, paying for rent and their children’s food and education with their U.S. salaries.

The stress of what these women call “la línea,” Spanish for the line, takes a physical and emotional toll. “I know women that have developed back problems while sitting in line, women who have developed anxiety problems from sitting in line,” Ramos said.

SENTRI would allow them to cross the border in a fraction of the time since inspections at the customs booths in the dedicated lanes for trusted travelers are faster. More than 220,000 people were enrolled in SENTRI last year in the San Diego-Tijuana region, according to the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

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