’Willful Blindness?’: Deportees Becoming Easy Prey for Gangs Along the US-Mexico Border Michael Sangiacomo - The Plain Dealer
go to original August 29, 2017

Deported to Tijuana, a drug and crime-riddled hellhole (BavFilms)

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency knows the city of Nuevo Laredo is one of the most dangerous places in Mexico, yet it continues to send tens of thousands of deportees there every year.

Within a span of a recent week, three Painesville residents were deported to the border town in northeast Mexico. Two were kidnapped and beaten. They were released only after their families in the U.S. paid the cartel thousands of dollars.A third was robbed as she tried to reach family members.

Many other deportees are far less fortunate.

Those who have studied the town's violence say many victims kidnapped as they cross into Mexico are not released, even if their families pay. They are forced to work in marijuana fields and drug factories, or are forced to kill for the cartel. Young women end up as prostitutes.

All to support the gang's criminal enterprise.

Critics say the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's practice of sending tens of thousands of potential victims there every year is bankrolling the drug cartels that send drugs and criminals into the United States.

"They get a great deal of money from the kidnap victims and also are using them in the gangs," said Veronica Dahlberg, director of the immigration support group, HOLA of Ashtabula. "This produces a great deal of money for the cartels, which enables them to send drugs into the United States. Why is ICE playing into the cartel's hands?"

Read the rest at Cleveland.com

Related: Over 584,000 Mexicans Returned to the Country in 3 Years (El Universal)

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