Deported

What does it feel like to be deported from the place you've spent your entire adult life? This episode, I speak to Jesus Ortiz, who was ripped away from his family in the United States and forced to return to Mexico. Jesus has an incredible personal story, but his experience reveals just as much about American immigration policy and Mexican attitudes towards outsiders. 

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Website: www.lostinmexico.com

Transcript

Nita: To start, a confession. When my husband Kiran and I visited Mexico City for the first time in 2018, we asked a mariachi band to play Despacito for us. While wearing oversized sombreros. And then posted about it on Facebook. So our attempts to win the respect of Mexicans didn’t get off to a great start.

Now that we’ve lived in Mexico City for six months, we’re starting to feel like we fit in. At least until I spoke to my friend Dennis: “Like your face doesn’t look Mexican. I don’t know how that sounds, but it’s just the way it is you know. It’s just people look a certain way, you know, just, and yeah, you don’t look Mexican.” [Music]. Another friend, Mau, told me that my Spanish was “better than a Russian coming here,” which was definitely not meant as a compliment. 

But the biggest obstacle to fitting in might just be cultural. As Dennis (now done with mocking my face) told me:

“We have a really, really, really, really strong culture, that’s what I think, so when you when you mention you’re from Mexico in any other context, like people even like we have spice like chile associated to us, you know, … people know Mexican food is spicy, we have tequila we have like, a lot of cultural cornerstones to Mexican identity, which are hard to to slide into, I would say like, you cannot really become culturally Mexican completely. [Music Fades Out].

It’s not like the US. It’s not like an idea. It’s not like everybody that comes here can become Mexican. It’s more complex than that.”

So if Dennis is right, you need to grow up in Mexico to be accepted as Mexican, and I shouldn’t even bother trying. My friend Jose totally disagreed: “I think there’s room for everyone … as long as you’re, you’re actively wanting to be here and trying to trying to do good,  … I think it’s … what’s your attitude … towards Mexico that either makes you a Mexican or not.” As proof, Jose pointed to Chavela Vargas, the Costa-Rican born singer famous for singing Mexican rancheras, who said “‘los mexicanos nacemos donde nos da la rechingada gana’ which literally translates to ‘we Mexicans are born wherever the fuck we want.’” [Intro Music].

I’m Nita Rao, and this is Lost in Mexico, a podcast about my journey to understand Mexico through conversations with Mexicans. Each episode, I speak to Mexicans who don’t get covered in the foreign press, but have something important to say about their lives and this country. This week, I’ll be speaking to people with a unique perspective on what it means to fit into Mexico—people who’ve been deported or forcibly returned to Mexico after building a life in the United States. This is Lost in Mexico. [Intro Music Fades Out].

Nita: I grew up in Australia, which has some of the toughest immigration policies in the world. And when I worked in a US law firm, I did some pro bono work for asylum seekers seeking refuge in President Trump’s America. But before moving to Mexico, I’d never met anyone who had been deported, and frankly, had never really thought about what happened next. Deportation always felt like the end of the story, this void that people were sent into. But what does it mean to be ripped away from the place that you’ve made your home and sent back to somewhere that now feels foreign?

[Effect] I started at the offices of Otros Dreams en Acción or ODA, a non-profit organization which represents people forced to return to Mexico after living undocumented in the United States. ODA is a space for deportees and returnees, and I wasn’t surprised to hear people speaking Spanglish and talking about American sports. [Effect Fades Out] [Music]. But what struck me was a large sign near the entrance attacking President Obama which said: “A few years back people wore shirts of a man that was supposed to bring hope. But he left me south of the border, without family, broke.” [Music Fades Out]. After living in Washington DC, where attacks on President Obama are heresy, I decided to speak to a member of the deported community to find out more.

Jesus Ortiz is pretty tall by Mexican standards. He has a toothy smile, the kind of guy who always looks on the brink of laughter. He described himself as chubby, but I thought that he was being a little harsh on himself. [Music]

Jesus was born and raised in Mexico City, speaks fluent Spanish, and ticks all the cultural boxes. “I love tacos. I love salsa, I love spiciness. I know the language, I know the parts of the country.” In short, he’s not the kind of guy you’d think would have a problem being accepted as Mexican. But he told me that he feels completely lost in Mexico, and not just because that’s the name of this podcast. [Music].  

[Music Fades Out].

It all started when Jesus got sick in high school with chicken pox and hepatitis.

Jesus: We got so much medical bills. So I told my mom, you know what? I think I should go to the States. And I just want to pay the debt of the medical bills. 

Nita: Jesus went to the US Embassy to get a visa, but was denied because the immigration officer didn’t believe Jesus when he said he was going to Disneyland. So in 2002, when Jesus was 20 years old, he paid a coyote $3000 USD to take him across the border. President Trump has made some weird comments about coyotes: “Without borders, we have the reign of chaos, crime, cartels and believe it or not, coyotes.”

To be clear, coyotes in this context are not wild canines but rather smugglers paid to get people across the border. [Music] Between 80 to 95% of migrants used coyotes to cross the border in recent years, compared with fewer than half in the 70s. Today, cartels like the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas control large portions of the border, and need to be paid off for every migrant that crosses. Back when Jesus crossed, however, it was a simpler story. [Music Fades Out].

Jesus: I don’t think it was that dangerous … And cause I guess the narcos didn’t, you know, use us people to cross their products or whatever things. 

[T]hey took us in a pickup truck. Through the desert like in the middle of the night. … And I think at that age, you don’t think about any risks. You know it’s like you know I just gonna I was just focusing on what I wanted to do for my family and I mean, especially for my mom[.]

Nita: Jesus ended up in Charleston [Music], South Carolina, a small southern city of 100,000 people. I’ve never been to Charleston, but my friends have described it as sleepy, somnolent, and genteel, words that would never be used to describe Mexico City.

Jesus: My first actual reaction was like what I gonna do in this city cause the only thing you see around you is … miles and miles and miles of trees. … I was expecting to see like the big buildings like you always see on TV, no. I was expecting to see a Spider Man. … Coming from a big city as Mexico City. I was like, I don’t think I’m gonna I’m gonna stay too much in this in this place you know. [Music Fades Out].

Nita: Jesus had no documents, no job, and a mountain of debt to pay off. After a few years of working in construction, he decided to start his own business. He ran a fairly old-school marketing campaign, putting business cards in random mailboxes:

Jesus: And I had a guy, old guy who came out of his house with a shotgun [Effect] like: ‘Hey why are you doing in my mailbox?’ And I was like, I’m just you know, I didn’t have much English at the time. So I was like, ‘work’ ‘work’, showing him the business card. … And he was like, you know what you’re not supposed to touch my mailbox? Are you stealing something? Are you doing something? I’m like no. ‘Just work, work.’ He was like, ‘OK. Get out of here and don’t come back anymore.’ I was like, OK. I was so nervous and I still left the business card, so I just put it in the mailbox and I was like, OK. And I was gone. [Music].

A few days later, he called me … and he was like, Hey, Jesus, do you remember me? I was like, ‘who are you?’ He’s like, ‘I’m the guy with the shotgun.’ ‘Do you think you can come to my house because I had a job for you?’ … I was so afraid. But I was like, I had nothing to lose. I had no customers. I had, you know, I just got to do it. So I went to his house and he was like ‘hey Jesus!’ hand shake, and, you know, thank you for coming. [Music Fades Out].

Nita: So Jesus painted the old guy’s house.

Jesus: He was like ok, Jesus, thank you so much. You know why I call you? I was like, no. I call you cause I like people like you. You know, who come to the States or come to just start their own thing. … But please don’t touch any mailbox if it isn’t yours. 

Nita: After the old guy spread the word, Jesus never had a problem finding customers. But he started to realize that he didn’t want to leave Charleston.

Jesus: But I think like after I paid the debt, I was like, No, this is what I came for. And I started you know, growing roots and having friends and going out with with more people. And kind of I started loving the lifestyle in Charleston. … I was like I don’t want to go back to Mexico City where it’s so crowded. So I kind of had a declaration over my head you know like I’m not going back until they take me back. 

[Music]

Nita: In 2018, there were an estimated 10.8 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Living in the US, you couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing President Trump’s diatribes about undocumented Mexicans flooding across the border and draining resources. But as the Pew Research Center has found, undocumented Mexicans have left the US in droves in the past decade, driven by an improved Mexican economy and an increase in deportations. Now less than half the undocumented population in the US is Mexican, and more unauthorized Mexicans are leaving the country than entering it. [Music Fades Out]

I asked Jesus what it felt like to be undocumented.

Jesus: You know what at first, of course, you kind of feel … But once you start, you know, I guess growing roots and connecting with people. It’s like none of my customers ever ask me, like, are you legal or illegal? They just care about if I was working … And and I guess that helped me not to feel like undocumented. 

Nita: So life for Jesus was pretty good. After starting out with nothing, he now had a girlfriend and a comfortable life in Charleston.

In January 2010, he travelled interstate to New Mexico to get a driver’s license, which he needed to apply for the equivalent of a high school diploma. He used his friend’s New Mexico address in the license application. And that is when everything changed.

Jesus: I went for the driver’s license in 2010 [Music] and they came to my door on 2012. …. And, you know, they’d knock on the door like, ‘do you know this guy’ and they had the picture of the driver’s license, like, ‘do you know this guy,’ I was like, ‘that’s me’. OK. ‘You are under arrest because of fraud against the United States of America,’ I was like, what? I was like no, I went for myself, I did it because I needed the driver’s license, I never reproduced anything. But then they kinda hooked me up to other people and they say, like it was a conspiracy ring and I was part of it. I was like I wasn’t part of that thing[.] I mean, they accuse me of so many things that I never did.

Nita: Jesus was charged with multiple offences, including transporting undocumented aliens, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. He was thrown into detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE. [Music Fades Out]

Jesus: You feel powerless.  You feel like nothing … [Music] The way they ask you, like whatever they tell you, they kinda force you to being guilty or feel guilty like ‘you did the worst thing ever in your life. So you better tell us the truth. And if you know somebody else, you better tell us, because that can save you.’ Plus, being in the cell. It was like that’s … like a freezer. It’s so-cold it’s like, really? I am the worst criminal for to be in this in this room and this cell.

Nita: Eventually, Jesus was transported to the Charleston County Jail:

Jesus: You have killers, where you have drug dealers, where you have like any type of criminals, I guess, which are real criminals and you are just hanging with them like. I think that was the most afraid thing for me … [Y]ou are in jail. You know, everybody can be your enemy. Just in one second. [Music Fades Out].

Nita: Jesus was released on bond, but still faced felony charges for fraud. A state-appointed public defender represented him. On the day of his trial, he made a fateful decision. 

Jesus: My attorney advised me that it was better for me to plead guilty to reproducing the official document. Like fraud. And if I plead guilty to that, they will release me and nothing else will come behind me, like any more accusations or any more anything else. So I was like, eh it sounds like a really good deal. … So I plead guilty and that was the biggest mistake. You know, I think that was the dumbest thing I did. 

Nita: Pleading guilty meant that Jesus had a felony conviction. Under President Obama, the top priority of immigration enforcement was removing undocumented people with felony convictions. [Obama: And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families, criminals, not children]. I asked Jesus if he blamed his lawyer for advising him to plead guilty. 

Jesus: I mean, she was she was a really nice person. … But … being a state provided lawyer. [Music]. It could be like, you know, just just “this is what we need you to do.” We need that this guy plead guilty because that way we can deport him. I don’t know. That’s just my assumption. Because I have, you know on the other cases, the people hire a private lawyer and they they still living back in the US. Now they had documents and they’re like. And I’m like, What? [Music Fades Out]

Nita: My public defender husband didn’t love this part of the story. But I digress. Now that Jesus had a felony conviction, it didn’t take long for the U.S. government to start deportation proceedings. He had one last shot to stay in the country: getting married to his Mexican-American girlfriend.

Jesus: During the immigration hearings, she was like, man I think we should get married. Not just to save you, but because I love you. And we, we have we have planned our wedding for so long. And let’s just do it. We married one day before the last immigration hearing. … So we married, we went in front of the judge and he was like, ok I’m gonna give an order of deportation. And we were like, okay, wait. We just got married. Like, she is a citizen and she’s gonna apply for me. And he’s like, oh, you just you guys just married because you want to save him, and I was like, no … And I show him proof, you know, we were engaged and I brought photos and show him … He he was like, OK, I just got to declare order of deportation. And you can fight your case.

Nita: Jesus fought his case for five years, but eventually ran out of options. [Music]. He told immigration authorities that he would leave the US in January 2018. He had his final check in with ICE on January 11. 

Jesus: And I bought my airplane ticket and I got everything. You know, like, everything ready to leave the country. … But by that night, my wife told me that we were pregnant. … And so I call the the immigration officer who was in charge of my case, and I told him, you know what, my wife is pregnant and you give me more time to to be here for her. And he was like, man, … I cannot give you more time because, you know, you already had five years. … I was like, please, just give me the pregnancy time and that’s it. [Music Fades Out].

Nita: So what do you say to people who suggest that you and your wife sort of wanted to get pregnant to stay in the country?

Jesus: No, we tried to get pregnant, like pretty much, like the next day we were married because I wanted to have kids … but I didn’t have none kids for my own. We try many times we lost two babies during those five years and at the last minute we had our baby. 

Nita: Jesus was given two more months to pack his bags. After 16 years of living in the US, he was leaving his wife and unborn baby behind without knowing if he would ever return. 

[Music]. As I learnt in researching this story, nearly 200,000 people were deported from the US to Mexico in 2017, down from the high of 300,000 in 2013 during the Obama administration. For that reason, there isn’t much love for President Obama from many immigration advocates, who call him the “Deporter-in-Chief.” Under President Trump, however, the rhetoric has definitely became harsher. [Music Fades Out]. [Trump: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. … They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some I assume are good people]. The focus has shifted from deporting people committing serious crimes to deported anyone living in the U.S. without authorization. 

I asked Jesus what his life was like after he was forced back to Mexico. 

Jesus: You know, my life was being cut in half just leaving my family behind. I was at some moments I was like crying in the plane like crazy. Sometimes I was like, okay, this is gonna be fine. It’s just gonna be like one year and you’re gonna be back to your family. You know, I was trying to be positive. 

Nita: Can you tell me a bit about how it felt not being there for the birth of your daughter?

Jesus: I think that’s one of the most hardest [Music] days of my life, you know, just not being with my … you know … my daughter, my actual daughter, and I was like, Well, I’m not gonna live this again. I’m not there for her. I mean I wasn’t there physically, but I was there at least through video call. And she is amazing. Just to see her like growing I mean, she is going to be almost two years. What can I say? You know, she’s beautiful. She’s so smart and not because it’s my daughter, but if some day you met her, you will see like, she’s so social. You know, she goes anywhere she goes, she makes people laugh. She’s like, Hi. And even if she’s so small, I don’t know. We do video calls at least once, once a day. And I try to teach her Spanish and play with her and I don’t know it’s just amazing. Even if if I’m not there with her, she knows who I am. [Music Fades Out]. 

Nita: Jesus decided not to bring his wife and kids with him to Mexico.

Jesus: You know, when you come back to Mexico ... You don’t have much to offer to your family. How am I bring them here if I don’t have a place to live with them. I think they are way better up there because also, healthcare, how are you going to provide health care if I cannot provide it for myself first. 

Nita: Adjusting to Mexican life was really hard for Jesus. For the first six months, he couldn’t get any government benefits, because his Mexican passport—which was issued in the US—was not accepted in Mexico. 

Esme: Whenever you’re first deported or forced to return, there is no connection with people because you do not know anybody. 

Nita: This is Esme Flores Marcial, who runs reintegration programs for ODA, the organization I mentioned earlier.

Esme: You do not have networks, whether it be financial or emotional or family networks, because you have not seen these people in 10, 20, 30, 40 years. … So there is no bond, nothing to bond you to this place anymore. That’s why, … a lot of the deportees that are usually male are homeless because there is no one that can give them even a place to stay. … We don’t have any kind of connection period, like family, friendship with the nationality when you’ve been gone from a place for so long. … Because that what that is what deportation and forced return is—exile.

Nita: Jesus had spent his whole adulthood in the US. I asked him what it was like being back in Mexico for the first time in two decades.

Jesus: You come back to a place that it is the same place in some sense that you was born and raised. But it’s not exactly the same thing. [Music]. You know, not the old friends not the old people, you had to reconnect. It’s pretty much that you had to restart everything. [Music Fades Out].

And that’s when another reality hits is like, OK. Now what what are you going to do? 

Nita: Jesus, how did people treat you when you came back to Mexico?

Jesus: You know kinda people, so see you like different. Not discriminating, but it’s like oh you are not from here. You’re not Mexican. I’m like, yes, I’m Mexican. I was born and raised. No but your accent is completely different. You don’t speak like normal Spanish, like Mexican Spanish. So where are you from? I’m like, I am Mexican. You don’t want to say like I just come back from the States because you don’t want to put your self at risk like they think you are super rich or you have like a lot of money … And you start feeling like you don’t fit in even when you speak. So you start like no feeling at home at all. 

Nita: Although there are a lot of sad parts to Jesus’s story, there was one thing that made me feel hopeful. Jesus has found a community with other people who’ve been deported or returned to Mexico. As Esme from ODA told me:

Esme: Besides this initial feeling of exile, … everybody has the same similar kind of experience living in the United States or growing up in the United States, which is not something that you can usually share with people that have lived in Mexico all their lives.

Jesus: That’s why I think most of my friends and the people that I surrounded by, … are either people from the States or deportees or returnees, because that’s how I feel, you know that. Even if I’m not in the States, I want to still speak English. I want to keep eating, grilled cheese sandwich BLT sandwich and some things that Mexican people really don’t eat everyday, you know? … If I tell one of my Mexican friends, hey, you want to eat some grits, they will be like, what is that? 

Nita: Do you still feel Mexican?

Jesus: Of course I am Mexican I love you know my food. I love my culture. I don’t think I will never stop being Mexican and feel Mexican. But also, by how I lived in the states. I feel American in some way. 

I didn’t celebrate many things in the States like … Dia de los Muertos … I didn’t have so many of my people there to celebrate with and and now that I’m back … I don’t feel like part of it. [Music]. You know, I have lived without a nationality for so many years. 

 Nita: Jesus still dreams of going back to the United States.

Jesus: Whatever I did with the driver’s license, I think I paid already, I paid to society, like, you know, many people who say, and I think is, you know, we had the right to have a second chance you know. … My wife, … she’s applying for me and we are hoping that whenever I had the interview in the embassy or the consul, the person that who had the interview with, it will be like, you know what? You are welcome to the States again. I mean, I like you know, the motto or the slogan from South Carolina. Which is "as long as I breathe, I hope" you know, and I am still hoping to come back to the States one day. [Music Fades Out]

Conclusion 

Nita: When you’re deported, you’re sent back to a place that a government deems to be your home, without any guarantee of feeling at home in that place. Being born in Mexico and growing up Mexican doesn’t mean that you will be accepted as Mexican. 

I’m Nita Rao and this is Lost in Mexico. Thank you for joining us for episode two! Special thanks to my executive producer, Kiran, and to Steph and Amanda for their help in telling Jesus’s story. If you liked this episode, please subscribe to the show in your podcast app to receive every episode automatically, and follow us on Instagram @ lostinmexico.podcast for more interesting stories about life in Mexico. We’d love to know what you thought about the episode: You can leave us a review through Apple Podcasts. We’ll be back in two weeks for the next episode—see you then!