Modern Migrants Pose New Challenges to Mexican Border Towns Lourdes Medrano - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original February 18, 2013

This bridge to El Paso, Texas, is one of the legal border crossings into the U.S. (Shaul Schwarz/Getty Images)

NOGALES, Mexico - A forlorn Graciela Severiano sits silently at a church soup kitchen, surrounded by recently returned migrants, each cast adrift in this sprawling town on the US-Mexico border.

The migrants – arriving hungry, tired, and often with blistered feet to the long, wooden tables at el comedor – are among a record number of people being deported from the US to Mexico. During President Obama's first term, his administration deported 1.5 million immigrants from various countries, according to US government figures. In 2011, close to 300,000 deportees were Mexican nationals, and nearly all of them ended up in Mexican border towns, like Nogales.

Although national and local governments in Mexico provide some basic services, it is mostly good Samaritans and religious organizations who feed, clothe, and house migrants until they move on, perhaps trying to cross the border again, or attempting to build a new life in a country, that despite their citizenship, no longer feels like home. Viewed with suspicion in the US for their accents, skin color, or illegal status; Mexican migrants also face indifference and resentment from many in their home state.

"The [Mexican] government has not yet made the necessary adjustments to care for this population," says Jorge Durand, a professor of anthropology at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.

Some Mexicans look down on migrants for leaving Mexico in the first place, and shame those who come back speaking better English than Spanish after growing up in the US, says Mr. Durand, who has studied Mexico's migration patterns for years.

"It's a complicated situation," that merits careful study and attention to help returning migrants reintegrate into Mexican society, he says.

Read the whole story at The Christian Science Monitor

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