Maria Ines Zamudio: Fear and Loathing at the US-Mexico Border Maria Ines Zamudio - The Chicago Reporter
go to original September 11, 2013

In mid-March, The Chicago Reporter traveled to Matamoros and spent four days in the area to interview deportees like Hernandez and Ruiz at a bus station and an immigrant shelter. According to the Consulate General of Mexico in Chicago, Matamoros is among three border cities where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement drops off deportees from its Chicago “area of responsibility,” a region that includes six Midwest states.

In 2012, more than 62,000 deportations were made to Matamoros, a sevenfold increase from 2008, according to the Center of Migration Studies, a research department within the Mexican Secretary of the Interior that tracks migration in and out of Mexico. An additional 59,700 deportations were made to the other two cities, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, in 2012.

Immigrant advocates and researchers of the region’s violence say the three cities are rife with danger for deportees. Drug cartels fight each other for territory while the Mexican army tries to curb the violence without much success. Deportees become targets for theft, extortion and kidnapping. Some are even recruited to work for the cartels.

Read the rest at The Chicago Reporter

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