Gee, anyone else think we ought to find this woman's husband in Seattle and send him back to Mexico, too? Are Americans the only ones who actually believe in and abide by the rule of law anymore?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...m17deport.html

Program responds to the needs of children deported to Mexico


By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 17, 2006

TIJUANA – Rita Medina waited anxiously for a glimpse of her 2-year-old daughter at the Mexican port of entry. The child was being deported from the United States after a foiled attempt to smuggle her across the border.



JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune
Rita Medina was reunited with her daughter, Keiri, 2, at a Tijuana facility after the child was deported following a failed smuggling attempt.
Medina's plan had been to hire people to get the little girl and her 6-year-old brother into the United States illegally. Medina, 28, would follow on their heels so the entire family could reunite with her husband, who works in a Seattle warehouse.

The boy made it across. But the girl, who was riding in a car with someone pretending to be family, didn't. Word got back to Medina, who was told to wait near the border for her daughter, Keiri, who appeared shortly. “Mi mamá, mi mamá,” the child said as they snuggled. The two met at an office where dashed dreams mingle with happy reunions. Baja California social service workers operate the office out of a converted mobile home to respond to the immediate and special needs of children deported after foiled attempts to enter the United States illegally.

Children, especially those as young as Keiri, can't just be released on the city's streets. Social service workers provide food and a resting spot while they attempt to locate family members or prepare to have the children returned to their state of origin.

More than 11,800 children have received help at the Tijuana facility and at a similar set-up in Mexicali during the past two years, according to March statistics from the Baja California's social services agency, known as the Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, which coordinates the program.

Young children like Keiri are brought across by smugglers hired by their parents. Those who are older often travel on their own, determined to find their mother or father. Some try to cross the border to work, while others are escaping violence and troubled lives in search of a relative in the United States.

In the past, when children were deported, they were sent immediately to local shelters while social workers opened case files. Now the youth spend their first day after deportation at the converted mobile home, which was opened two years ago. The idea is being duplicated in other Mexican border areas.

“They often arrive here in a delicate state,” said Juan Enrique Mendez Meza, who oversees the Tijuana operation. “When they are detained, the younger ones are often frightened, and the older ones are disappointed because their dream was to work and help their family because the family depends on them.”


The mobile home has cribs for babies. It includes a tiny kitchen with bar stools and a bunk bed area for naps. A television plays children's videos such as “Hello Kitty Saves the Day” and “Tarzan.”

Juana Silva, an office assistant, poured cereal and milk into bowls for the children while she gently chided a 12-year-old boy.

“Has this been 12 times, 15 times, 16 times? How many times have you been here?” she said, but got no response.

She asked him where he crossed this time. He said, “El Cerro,” indicating the hilly area near Tecate.

The boy squirmed in his seat. He didn't want to talk about his family life but said he is from Tijuana and has an uncle in Escondido.

Silva reminded him not to bite his nails. He smiled sheepishly.

Mendez, who runs the office, said about 65 percent of the children try to get across the border using fake documents or by hiding in cars. About 35 percent try to walk across, either by themselves or with guides.

In another room, four teenage boys lounged on bunk beds. Jonathan Jaero, 15, said he was from Guadalajara and on his way to the Los Angeles area. He talked in jaunty urban slang, saying he would stay a few months in the United States visiting family.

“This is a vacation, but I have to work while I'm on vacation to have money so I'm thinking of being an arrow,” he said, referring to people hired to wave advertising signs to direct customers to restaurants or buyers to real estate.

Some of the other boys laughed.

A 15-year-old boy with a serious face, who gave his name only as Gabriel, said he was heading to Escondido to work in agriculture.

“There are lots of people from my village who go there to work,” he said, speaking quietly and looking out of place among the more sophisticated city boys.

Mendez said about 20 percent of the children he interviews after they have been deported are heading north to work. About 80 percent are trying to join family members. A report is written on each child and much of the information is saved on a computer for future reference and statistical purposes.

If family members can't pick up a child immediately, the child is taken to youth shelters in the city to await reunification. Mendez and his crew continue to search for family by phone and records. If no one here can take custody of the children, they are sent home to their families within a few weeks, usually by plane and in the care of social workers, Mendez said.

Above his desk, Mendez has taped a printout of a Mexican federal law that says contracting with a people smuggler – which parents often do for their children – is a crime.

“Many people don't know that,” he said.

The warning is a flimsy deterrent to many parents who figure Mexican authorities don't have the will to prosecute them.


With half her family already in the United States, Rita Medina of Guanajuato state said she was eager to be with her husband. Those ties would determine their future, she said, rather than laws.

“If we don't get across, then perhaps he will have to return in a few more months,” she said.


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Anna Cearley: (619) 542-4595; anna.cearley@uniontrib.com