Bound by Mutual Interests, US-Mexico Border Towns Hope to Maintain Ties Ramon Taylor - VOA News
go to original March 8, 2017

Nogales and Nogales, Border Towns Worry About US Immigration Policy (VOA News)

Going from Nogales, Arizona, in the United States to Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico, you put your bags on a security belt and pass through a full-length turn style within the rusty, metal barrier that separates the two Nogales. No ID is required by Mexican authorities.

It is an easy trip and speaks to the relaxed, vibrant culture shared by the two cities, on either side of the border. They have been separated by a fence, one of the first on the border, for almost 100 years. It split the street that divided them, but not the spirit that unites them.

Now both sides fear their relationship may be in jeopardy if U.S. immigration policy changes to the point that deportations of undocumented immigrants increase dramatically. Many Mexican nationals who are deported from the United States are dropped off in Nogales, Mexico.

Mayor Temo Galindo says that his city receives from 50 to 70 deportees a day, but it would not be unprecedented for those numbers to increase tenfold. "The figure can increase to between 500 and 700 daily, which has happened before,” he says.

“These are not people from Nogales,” local reporter Felipe Ortiz Alor clarifies.“These are people from other states of the country.” He adds that many of them were deported because they were guilty of committing serious crimes in the United States. So right away, there is a security problem.

But it is quickly followed by a humanitarian one. “How to feed all these people, how to give them jobs and accommodate them, because not everyone is a criminal,” Alor says.“They need to survive here.”

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