Thread: Mexican village serves as purgatory for the deported

Published: Nov. 17, 2011 Updated: Nov. 20, 2011 9:36 a.m.

Mexican village serves as purgatory for the deported

In the Mexican village of Santa Barbara, hope shrinks and dreams shatter each day.

BY CINDY CARCAMO / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Second of two parts

For more than 20 years, natives of Guerrero, Mexico, have sought a better life in the U.S., with many of them settling in Orange County, especially in Santa Ana. Lately, what was a one-way wave of immigration has reversed. The slow U.S. economy and an unprecedented number of deportations have led many of those immigrants to return to Mexico. Orange County Register staff writers Cindy Carcamo and Michael Mello detail the phenomenon in a two-part story. These stories were made possible by a UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism grant that was funded by the Rosenberg Foundation.

TWO CITIES

Part 1: Immigration shift drains Santa Ana
Legal and illegal immigrants leaving for Mexico spark changes to Orange County's second-largest city.

• Immigrants' return to Mexico alters Santa Ana
• O.C. family returns to a violence-plagued Mexico

Part 2: Dreams die in wake of deportation
In the Mexican village of Santa Barbara, hope shrinks and dreams shatter each day.
•Mexican village serves as purgatory for the deported

•••

SANTA BARBARA, GUERRERO, MEXICO – The woman who sells sweets and knickknacks from her front porch tallied up 10 years with her fingers – the time of banishment handed down by a United States immigration judge for entering the country illegally.

Across the road, a couple clung to hope that their U.S.-born daughter might one day be their ticket back north.

A few blocks down, a stocky man who U.S. officials have removed several times hopped into a truck for the first leg of his journey to Santa Ana. These four people are part of a larger group returning to Santa Barbara – a rural community of about 800 in southern Mexico that's long been tethered to Santa Ana.

Until recently, Santa Barbara's rustic dwellings were mostly inhabited by children, women and the elderly. Most of the men and many families had left, settling more than 2,000 miles away in Santa Ana and regularly sending photos, letters and money back to Santa Barbara.

Now, some of the thousands of people deported from the U.S. to Mexico under the Obama administration are transforming this village, where only two phone lines exist and most jobs revolve around corn cultivation. Men and families are returning from Santa Ana and other areas, carrying with them a new set of expectations that is proving to be a challenge for them and the community.

Some say their return is punishment for not making the most of their life in the U.S. Others say they feel they are wasting away, joining the many others rummaging for meager work. Most simply wait in a place they no longer consider home – a purgatory that's lush and raw.

"This is an eternity," said Marta Adame, a 45-year-old who was deported with her husband four years ago.

The heavy clouds that drape the church and the abundant cornfields are about the only elements recognizable to Adame and others who return to the village after years – sometimes decades.

Many who return – mostly due to deportation – find it difficult to reintegrate into Mexican life because they have become accustomed to the availability of well-paying jobs and inexpensive food and clothing, paired with the ease and efficiency of American life.

After 13 years in the U.S. – about half of that time in an apartment on Flower Street and Edinger Avenue in Santa Ana – Maria de Jesus Memije and her husband, Bertin Olvera Saldaña, lament their homecoming.

"The bad thing is that you return worse off than how you left," Memije said. "You get used to the nice things. You leave and then you return and can't get used to this new way of life."

American dollars from Santa Ana fueled much of the homebuilding in Santa Barbara. However, as the occupants labored in Orange County, many dwellings sat vacant in Mexico. The sun and rain inevitably reclaimed the adobe buildings, eroding them after years of neglect.

Memije's and Saldaña's small wood-and-plaster home sits steps away from a bend in the river that later in the day fills with cackles and gossip as women douse their family's laundry with muddied water.

A mixture of detergent and ripened fruit perfumed the air as Saldaña looked around, talking about his disappointment in the condition of the home he returned to and helped build with American dollars.

"It was destroyed," he said of his house with its floor of hard-packed dirt. He pointed to the half-rotted roof. "It's going to cost $700 to replace the wood. We can't do anything about it because we have no money."

The 52-year-old and his wife said they were deported after being duped by a bad immigration attorney. While the couple made enough money with Saldaña's carpentry job to support their family in Santa Ana and later Arizona, mounting bills, a growing family and legal fees devoured the rest. They said they were penniless upon their return to Santa Barbara.

Their two adult daughters – both in the U.S. illegally – stayed behind while their youngest U.S.-born child, Myriam, 9, joined them.

The couple said they'd grown accustomed to a steady job and paycheck every other Friday.

"Over there, if you work hard, you have everything at your disposal," Memije said.

They are growing corn as a way to make a living, but it's not enough, they said. Moving to a bigger town, such as Acapulco, with better job opportunities is out of the question because of the region's security situation. Guerrero has become a staging ground for a horror show of mass killings and lawlessness stoked by a drug war.

On the other side of town, Marta Adame gazed out from her makeshift store stocked with sundries. She told her tale in an even, emotionless voice.

She and her husband returned to Santa Barbara four years ago, after an immigration attorney tried to legalize their status based on a false claim of political asylum, she said. The couple say they weren't aware of the situation when they penned their names on the fraudulent documents.

In turn, an immigration judge barred them from legally setting foot on U.S. soil for a decade, punishment for entering the country illegally and lying to immigration officials.

Adame, who left behind an adult son in Santa Ana, said time is too slow in Santa Barbara.

"I'm bored," she said. "You can't find enough to do here."

In the U.S., she'd become accustomed to hustling to her various odd jobs, such as cleaning homes. On Sundays, she'd gather with family and friends at a restaurant or stroll past the Fourth Street's Latino businesses, hunting for good buys.

"Life over there is beautiful. Even the poorest person lives like a rich person," she said.

In Santa Barbara, there is none of that. No restaurants. No shopping centers.

Her store – selling everything from candy to flashlights – is the closest around. Dusty jars showcase an array of sweets, such as pink and white marshmallows, chocolates and gum.

She opened her shop because there was nothing better to do in town. It makes just enough profit to help pay for phone calls to family in the U.S.

There's no alternative but to wait, Adame said. She refuses to make the illegal trek in her later years.

"It's too dangerous," she said. "I won't go without papers."

Santa Barbara's inhabitants have adapted to nights without electricity – a result of afternoon tropical storms that knock down power lines. On a night in August, the town's only illumination came from worn candles, dimmed lanterns and the twinkling of stars that choked the night sky.

Adolfina Saldaña and her estranged husband, Baltazar, made do with an anemic flashlight, attempting to pack their truck with family members and food before hitting the road to visit a sick friend.

After forging a life in the U.S. for 20 years, the couple moved back to Mexico three years ago. The economy had soured and Baltazar Saldaña, a legal U.S. resident, was unemployed and about to lose his Santa Ana home to the bank.

Baltazar said he is content to live a calm life in his native country.

Adolfina, who lacks legal status in the U.S., longs to return to Santa Ana. She said she's lost an adult son to an accident and has suffered from chills and depression since she arrived in Mexico.

While they now lead separate lives, they remain companions when they visit their country home in Santa Barbara, attempting to help those who weren't as lucky.

Adolfina says she's perceived more positively in Santa Barbara than people who are returned by U.S. officials.

Adame, owner of the sundries store, said she and others who have been deported are still seen as failures.

"Family helps you, but many make fun of you if you're deported," she said. "It shouldn't be this way."

Few are willing to lend a hand.

The Mexican government offers to recoup up to $380 of the costs associated with deportation, including transportation, lodging and meals as the deportees travel from the border entries where immigration officials drop them off to their hometowns. However, only about two people a month make claims in Guerrero state, according to state government officials. At the same time, hundreds return each month.

Many don't take advantage of the program because it isn't well-known and it can take a long time and several trips to the state capital to get the reimbursement, Baltazar Saldaña said.

SHUNNED BY COMMUNITY

His eyes fatigued with worry, Ernesto Almazan Serrano said he doesn’t have any family in Santa Barbara.

“I’m alone,â€

Published: Nov. 11, 2011 Updated: Nov. 20, 2011 9:41 a.m.

Immigrants' return to Mexico alters Santa Ana

An outward flow of immigrants leads to changes in the community's schools and home ownership.

O.C. family returns to a violence-plaqued Mexico

BY CINDY CARCAMO / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

First of two parts

For more than 20 years, natives of Guerrero, Mexico, have sought a better life in the U.S., with many of them settling in Orange County, especially in Santa Ana. Lately, what was a one-way wave of immigration has reversed. The slow U.S. economy and an unprecedented number of deportations have led many of those immigrants to return to Mexico. Orange County Register staff writers Cindy Carcamo and Michael Mello detail the phenomenon in a two-part story. These stories were made possible by a UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism grant that was funded by the Rosenberg Foundation.

TWO CITIES

Part 1: Immigration shift drains Santa Ana
Legal and illegal immigrants leaving for Mexico spark changes to Orange County's second-largest city.

• Immigrants' return to Mexico alters Santa Ana
• O.C. family returns to a violence-plagued Mexico

Part 2: Dreams die in wake of deportation
In the Mexican village of Santa Barbara, hope shrinks and dreams shatter eacha day.
•Mexican village serves as purgatory for the deported

For more than a quarter-century, volunteers at Obras de Amor Food Bank – staffed and funded by a Spanish-speaking megachurch in Santa Ana – dished up meals for hundreds of thousands of people annually, distributing food to a network of more than 30 organizations in Orange County.

However, four years ago the economic free fall, paired with tougher anti-illegal immigration laws and sentiments, sparked an exodus at Templo Calvario church, according to Executive Pastor Lee De Leon. About 15 percent of his parishioners – some U.S. citizens and others in the country legally and illegally – began to leave the country, which led to a reduction in the tithings that had helped fund the food bank.

Those who stayed couldn't give as much as before and, in 2009, the church shut down the food bank.

"It was very impactful, very emotional that they couldn't give like they were giving before and support the work like they were supporting before," De Leon said. "When the economy is the way it is and they had to move away or a family lost their breadwinner because of deportation ... it was as a gut-wrenching experience ... . The need for food had grown all over the county ... when you most need it, you're shutting the door."

The loss of the food bank is just one result of the changes in the flow of people between Orange County and Mexico.

With the downturn in the economy, Mexicans residing in Santa Ana legally and illegally began to look south. In the city of about 325,000, this Mexican flight has manifested itself in a number of ways: Census data show a decline in the city's Latino population. Schools report plummeting enrollment. Foreclosed homes abound in historically Mexican immigrant neighborhoods.

At the same time, the downtown Latino commercial district on Fourth Street is plagued with slumping sales and shuttered storefronts.

While analysts say it's a challenge to determine the number of migrants leaving the U.S. and where they are moving, anecdotal information suggests that legal and illegal immigrants are returning to their hometowns in Mexico, many to Guerrero state.

Demographers agree that fewer people are making the trek from Mexico to illegally enter the United States.

As rural Mexican towns struggle with how to absorb those returning, Santa Ana is contending with the departure of a portion of its residents.

ECONOMY AND DEPORTATION

Leaders in the Latino immigrant community – educators, real estate agents, pastors and others – say Mexicans for the most part are returning because of deportation and growing financial hardship.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latino families took the biggest blow during the recession, accounting for the largest decline of wealth of any ethnic group in the nation. In addition, immigration officials have deported record numbers of people during the Obama administration.

In the past six years, Santa Ana Unified School District has reported a 10 percent drop in enrollment.

At least 10 students from the prestigious El Sol Science and Arts Academy have left in the past year to return with their families to Mexico, Children Learning Center coordinator Sara Flores said.

Two of those families returned to Guerrero state, including students Grace and Alexis Castro, who relocated with their parents and older sister to Acapulco, where disputes between drug cartels are often settled at gunpoint. Flores said she tried to persuade the Castro family to stay and allow the girls to finish their schooling at El Sol, a charter school considered to be one of the best in the county. She couldn't keep the family from leaving.

Now, she uses the Castros' story to dissuade others from doing the same.

Karla Quezada of Santa Ana had planned to follow her sister, Berenice Castro, to Acapulco. However, after hearing about her sister's battle with the increasing violence back home, she opted against it. Quezada, who lacks legal status, said she'd rather stay than face the violence in Acapulco.

"After so many years, where my sister was born wasn't the same place she remembered, all the memories," Quezada said. "The violence is too difficult. I wonder if one could ever get used to that."

Gerardo Magaña, who works with youth in Santa Ana's primarily immigrant communities, said he knows at least two families that have returned to Mexico. Another 20, he said, were considering a move as of this summer. Before the recession, he said, families returning to Mexico were almost unheard of.

Magaña, senior director for Lighthouse Community Centers in Santa Ana and Orange, said jobs have dried up, leaving legal immigrants and those who are in the country illegally without many options.

"The quality of living ... what they're experiencing now in the U.S. ... it would be equal to what they went back home to in Mexico. So why be in a country where they are not wanted and have the same quality of living?" he said.

FORECLOSURES ABOUND

Just southwest of downtown Santa Ana, seasoned broker Juan Salas drove under a canopy of trees in one of Santa Ana's oldest neighborhoods. Single-family homes built in the 1950s now feature wrought-iron fences, lush lawns and palm trees – a combination that is a hallmark of a traditional Mexican immigrant neighborhood.

However, the neighborhood around South Spruce and West Myrtle streets has had several foreclosures because of migration back to Mexico. Salas, a managing partner at Prudential near downtown Santa Ana, said his agents have worked foreclosures in and around the area – many sparked by people returning to Mexico.

"Unfortunately, we've seen a trend," he said.

While data isn't kept on the phenomenon, there is plenty of anecdotal information. One of every eight homes his agents have worked that are lost to foreclosure in the city was in foreclosure because of a family member returning to Mexico, Salas estimated.

Historically, Mexican immigrant family members will buy a home together – combining their income to become co-borrowers on a home loan. Some may be in the country illegally. Others are U.S. citizens or legal residents.

However, when some of those family members, also co-borrowers, return to Mexico, it leaves those left behind struggling to make mortgage payments.

Like others across the country, these homeowners attempted to modify their loans when the housing market plunged. But meeting the bank's proof of income requirements has become a challenge, especially for those who are in the country illegally and working in the underground market.

As a result, many families had no other option than to foreclose, Salas said.

"I'm sure there are hundreds of cases," said Salas, a 15-year industry veteran. "This is the worst I've seen it."

In some cases, the households qualify for a short sale, saving its occupants from foreclosure. Still, it can be quite a complicated feat to gather all signatures required for the sale.

Under looming deadlines, Salas and his agents have had to hunt down co-owners in far-flung towns in Mexico. Once they've made contact, they ask them to visit the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to sign off on the sale because the documents are required to be authenticated by an American notary.

The increased foreclosures drag down home prices in the neighborhood and adjacent cities, Salas said.

"What we have going on here affects everyone," he said. "What goes on in Santa Ana impacts the surrounding cities. I don't think anyone can say they are not going to be impacted by this."

Register staff writer Andrew Galvin contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7924 or ccarcamo@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/news/mexico-3 ... amily.html

Now can we please have a boo hoo story about the suffering of American families whose wage-earners were pushed out of their jobs by illegals. Can we please have a story about how illegals have turned OC into a purgatory.

[quote]“If you’re born here, you should have rights,â€

yea. maybe they should stay home and fix their own country.

After he served his sentence for the outstanding DUI charge, Parra was taken to the James A. Musick Facility near Irvine, where he awaits a hearing this month with an immigration judge. He'll likely be deported. It will mark the eighth time he's been returned to Mexico since 1996, Parra said from behind a glass partition at the Men's Central Jail.

He blamed his weakness for alcohol for his situation.

"I know that I'm paying for what I've done," Parra said. "That's why I'm not too sad."

Still, he remains defiant.

"I'm going to attempt it again," he said of returning to Santa Ana. "As soon as I can."


This Is what we get when our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT refuses to enforce our Immigration laws This guy will come back for the NINTH TIME and probably kill a United States citizen or two before he Is caught again I am so disgusted with these pandering race based politicians that I have blood shooting from my eyes We have to vote these political lunatics out of office ASAP before our country Is lost forever

These assertions are nothing more than the usual SOB story the OC Register likes to run on behalf of their beloved illegal invaders. I'm in Santa Ana several times a week on business. If invaders are going home, there passing those who are on their way in.

Oh yeah...Santa Ana is a first class sanctuary city for illegal invaders! NOBODY is being deported from Santa Ana!

I don't believe any of it.

BOO HOO!

Know Santa Ana very well. Have worked and lived there. Seen it change through the decades. Find it hard to believe anyone would be deported from there unless they were big time gang members or those who committed major crimes. Even if some leave no one will notice any difference. Was probably the first sanctuary city in CA except for perhaps LA.

Originally Posted by strugglingcitizen

BOO HOO!

Yeah, I'm crying me a river too.