Doubtful Welcome Awaits Mexicans Returning Home

Federico Valdes Martinez, the mayor of this border city, has said that Mexican migrants returning in the wake of the new U.S. immigration law will be welcomed here con brazos abiertos-- with open arms.

But Francisco Najera, who said he has worked as an undocumented immigrant in the United States for years, says that each time he returned to Tijuana he was welcomed with open palms--the palms of Mexican immigration agents, police officers and other officials, who, according to immigrants and others, often shake down migrants.

“The Mexican government has never done anything for us migrants,” said Najera, a 23-year-old native of Chihuahua state who spoke here outside a church-run shelter where he is staying on his way back to the United States.

At a time when the new U.S. immigration law has heightened awareness of the plight of migrants here, the two men’s differing perceptions say much about the state of migrant services in this bustling border city of at least 1 million inhabitants, which ranks as one of the world’s great migratory centers.

“In Tijuana, the developed world meets the undeveloped world; the North meets the South,” noted Father Flor Maria Rigoni, a Catholic priest who directs a migrant shelter here and has worked with migrants in Europe and on seagoing freighters.

Since debate of the new U.S. immigration law began, Mexican news outlets have stressed the specter of mass deportations of Mexican citizens, prompting officials here and in other Mexican border cities to quickly raise a patriotic homecoming flag for their returning countrymen. Any mass deportations--indeed, any changes in the migratory flow--are likely to be felt in Tijuana, the most populous of the swelling Mexican border cities that stretch from the Pacific to Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico.

“If they chose to return, all Mexican citizens will be welcomed,” said Victor Lopez Alvarez, private secretary to the mayor here. “We are not alarmed. This city is a melting pot.”

In fact, there is considerable doubt that there will be massive deportations--U.S. officials have denied any such plans--or even large numbers of Mexicans voluntarily coming back to their homeland. But many Mexicans remain suspect of U.S. intentions, still recalling the now-infamous repatriation campaign during the 1930s, and the equally ill-famed 1950s effort dubbed “Operation Wetback.”

While playing down the prospect of mass deportations, U.S. officials have nonetheless voiced the expectation that many illegal aliens who do not qualify for amnesty will go back to Mexico on their own. And, since passage of the new immigration law, officials and others here report that some have indeed returned to Mexico, fearing greater immigration enforcement, but the number is still thought to be relatively small considering the uncounted millions of undocumented Mexicans believed to be living in the United States.

Whatever the eventual outcome, the specter of a flood of returning migrants has generated spirited discussions both at the border and in Mexico City, where, according to experts, officials have long viewed illegal migration to the United States as a kind of safety valve to relieve pressure for fundamental economic reform in Mexico.

In interviews, government critics have maintained that officials’ comments concerning a “welcome home” treatment for prospective returning migrants are self-serving and do not reflect the reality that there are few official shelters, food programs and other forms of assistance. Meanwhile, migrant advocates say police shakedowns remain a serious problem.

“Beyond words and political talk, I haven’t seen the government do a concrete thing for the migrants,” said Jose Luis Perez Canchola, who runs an immigration study center here and is affiliated with an opposition party. “Maybe the new law will have the effect of finally making them do something.”

Authorities here defend their migrant services, but it is clear that the bulk of relief work is left to church and private organizations.

“I think our services are sufficient,” said Alfredo Alvarez Cardenas, chief of the federal migratory services office here, whose offices overlook the huge lines of backed-up border traffic heading into the United States.

Asked to elaborate, Alvarez pointed to a new information booth opened at the border this month. However, the booth, staffed by university volunteers, is open only in the mornings, and the counseling offered to migrants appears to be thin, largely involving directions to inexpensive places to eat and sleep.

“You have to understand,” Alvarez said, “that a lot of these people don’t ask for assistance because they are just passing through on their way to the United States or back to their places of origin.”

While many migrants are undoubtedly passing through, many thousands of others from the impoverished Mexican interior elect to remain in Tijuana, which, despite the harsh poverty evident in many neighborhoods, still has a relatively low unemployment rate and one of the highest standards of living in Mexico, thanks largely to tourism and border-related commerce and industry.

That services for these migrants are minimal is evident by the absence or shortage of basic amenities--such as running water, electricity and sewage systems--in the migrants’ ramshackle neighborhoods and squatter communities along the city’s outskirts. Tijuana has always been a city of migrants.

“These people come here and are faced with miserable conditions,” said Perez Canchola.

With Mexico mired in its worst economic crisis in more than half a century, there appears to be little government relief on the way, despite the upbeat comments of officials here.

“Given the state of affairs, they can’t offer much more than a big welcome banner,” said Gustavo del Castillo, a political anthropologist who heads the North American studies program at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana and is also a visiting fellow at UC San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies.

Police Shakedowns

However, del Castillo and others point out that police shakedowns--one of the biggest problems encountered by migrants--could theoretically be abolished without touching the budget. That suggestion, however, is tempered by the recognition that funds from bribery and extortion have historically supplemented the meager salaries paid to Mexican policemen, customs inspectors and other low-level officials. (In Tijuana, the 800 municipal police officers are paid an average of about $8 a day, according to the mayor’s office.)

“Unfortunately, this kind of corruption has become institutionalized,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, who directs the independent Binational Center of Human Rights, which investigates alleged abuses against migrants and others.

Inevitably, Mexican officials deflect criticism of their police with assertions that they are “professionalizing” the various police agencies and ferreting out rogue elements. “One hundred police officers have been fired since January for not following the instructions of the mayor,” said Lopez, personal secretary to Mayor Valdez, who is ultimately responsible for the city police, the largest of the myriad of police agencies operating here. “If someone makes a complaint, it will be investigated thoroughly. . . . The people’s rights must be respected.”

But migrants interviewed shrugged off the notion of filing such complaints as futile. Francisco Najera, the Chihuahua native who said he worked as a mechanic in Los Angeles, said that agents of various police units had shaken him down three times in recent years, demanding about $35 each time. A Guatemalan migrant who had recently returned from Los Angeles said police stole all of his money--about $500.

“If you don’t give it to them, they’ll beat you,” said Najera, who said he was planning to cross back into California soon.

Besides being a staging point for hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who seek to enter the United States illegally, Tijuana is also regularly traversed by citizens of dozens of other countries--from China to Yugoslavia, from Argentina to Nigeria--who also come here in an effort to sneak into the United States. Many are eventually arrested in San Diego County.

Moreover, apart from those heading to the United States or simply seeking to settle in Tijuana, the city also absorbs considerable numbers of people from the north: During the past fiscal year, for instance, U.S. immigration authorities provided one-way transportation back to Tijuana for more than half a million Mexicans who were apprehended after having entered the United States illegally. Each day, buses filled with hundreds of deportees and other apprehended undocumented immigrants arrive at the pedestrian entrance to Mexico at the huge San Ysidro crossing here.