In an Associated Press article written by Julie Watson and published today, we learn that "Mexicans deported from US face shattered lives." The piece begins:
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The towering black gate opens silently to an alley with walls of corrugated metal. Scrawled in large white letters on one wall is: "The End."
For those deported from the United States, the words are an unnecessary reminder. Nearly every hour of the day, guards unlock this gate that leads back into Mexico, clicking open the padlocks hung on each side, in each nation.
Every time the gate slams shut, it wipes out a dream, divides a family, ends a life lived in the shadows of the law.
We later read:
In a week spent at the Tijuana gate, The Associated Press watched busload after busload of deportees arrive, some in a daze, still stunned over their sudden expulsion. Many stumbled over the Mexican official's question, "Where are you from?" after spending decades in the United States.
The faces of those who stream through reflect how tough and far-reaching the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration has become.
The article details the experiences of several illegal immigrants sent back. One is Nestor Ortiz, who's being sent back for the third time in ten days. In his last entry into the U.S., he injured his leg and feet in a 20-foot jump from a wall. Ortiz received treatment at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. The reporter doesn't indicate who paid for that treatment.
Ortiz calls his two sons in California:
"I'm not coming back," he says, choked up as he talks to his 17-year-old son by phone from Tijuana's Salvation Army shelter. "I can't walk. Both my feet are in bad shape."
He asks Juan to consider moving to his hometown of Tlalnepantla, on the edge of Mexico City.
The conversation turns tense. Juan has lived in the United States since he was 7 and doesn't want to leave his friends.
"I think you should not be alone over there," Ortiz says, sighing. "Finish high school and then you can come here. At least here you have your grandparents, your cousins. Over there, what do you have?"
Ortiz breathes in deeply, holds his brow and reels in his overwhelming grief.
He tells his other son, 23-year-old Nestor, to cancel his father's gym membership, put the Chevrolet Suburban in his name and take Juan to live with him.
Fortunately, reeling from the overwhelming grief didn't keep him from forgetting to cancel the gym membership and transfer the SUV's title.
Obviously intended to evoke sympathy for the plight of illegals sent back, the article makes little if any mention of why these people find themselves in such difficult circumstances. It's because they broke American law. They are uninvited intruders.
All the heart-wrenching anecdotes in the world don't change that most important fact. The unhappy people described by the AP are responsible for their own plight. They broke the law. It's a point worth highlighting. The AP didn't.
