Trapped at the Border: The Difficult Integration of Veterans, Families, and Christians in Tijuana

Abstract

The chapter characterizes Tijuana, Mexico, as a deportation city partly due to the large numbers of Mexican migrants deported to the city by the U.S. government. Adjacent to Southern California, Tijuana has long been a major destination for Mexican migrants headed north to the United States. The chapter uses data from the Encuesta de Migración en la Frontera Norte de Mexico (Survey on Migration on the Northern Border of Mexico), as well as data from ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and meetings with deported migrants, including deported U.S. war veterans and other deported migrants who have become members of a Christian church in Tijuana. Using these data sources, the chapter gives a demographic profile of the deportees in Tijuana. From a gender perspective, the chapter analyzes institutional and family conditions that facilitate the settlement of deportees in the city, or that lead to difficulties that drive deported migrants into situations of precariousness or exclusion. The analysis also focuses on the different strategies that deported parents undertake to cope with their forced return to Mexico and their separation from family remaining in the United States, as well as strategies to re-establish family relations along the divisive border.