After US Deportation to Tijuana, Many Lives Quickly Slide Into Despair Adrian Florido - KPBS.org
go to original June 8, 2013

A record number of undocumented illegal immigrants were deported from the United States last year. Most of the 400 thousand migrants were Mexican. And many ended up in places like Tijuana on Mexico's border with the US. As Adam Raney reports, some are living in tunnels, hoping to return to families they left behind. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

TIJUANA, Mexico — Last year the Obama administration deported 400,000 people from the United States, many sent to border cities like Tijuana. They’re often dropped off with little money, few belongings and no ties to the city. Once there, many lives quickly slide into desperation.

Juan Manuel Alvarez is 25. On a recent afternoon he was walking through Tijuana’s red light district, where he tries to make a living shining shoes. Other than his tattered clothes, his one possession is his shoe shiner’s kit, which he carries everywhere. His fingernails are perpetually stained with black polish.

Alvarez was deported from the U.S. last year, and since then, he’s been stranded in Tijuana, living in a shelter a short walk from the border, trying to collect enough for a bus ticket back to his hometown in Sinaloa. But the funds are scarce.

He pays for food and a bed at the shelter. And there are setbacks.

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