Deportees sent home to problems they left
By Hernán Rozemberg
San Antonio Express-News
02/14/2009
SAN VICENTE, El Salvador — Pablo García watched as the door slowly opened and a figure appeared from the dimly lit room, gingerly shuffling toward him. José García, ailing from kidney complications, nearly deaf and fearing imminent death, had no idea if he’d see his son again. But there he was at the family’s downtown home, standing in front of him.
The father, a scrawny man of few words without the energy to string together long sentences, quietly and gently embraced his son, who relinquished his stoic nature for tears and sobs.
“He’s the soul of my life,” the elder García, 63, finally muttered as he sat on a chair. “He has done so much for me. Thank God he’s here. I’m so happy.”
His son, now 29, had been gone four years, working construction jobs in the United States, keeping a low profile as an unauthorized immigrant and sending money back to San Vicente.
For Pablo, his father’s failing health — he needs a kidney transplant and dialysis treatments, but the family can afford neither — never was far from his mind.
He’d planned to visit sometime this year, even though to return north afterward would have been costly and risky. His unexpected early reunion with his father came courtesy of the U.S. government.
The younger García was one of 120 Salvadorans in U.S. immigration detention who were sent back two weeks ago from South Texas via “ICE Air,” the government’s de facto deportation airline.
It’s part of the bustling federal immigration enforcement machinery that’s arresting, jailing and deporting more unauthorized immigrants than ever.
The airline mostly serves Central American countries, which, besides Mexico, yield the most deportees, but is ready to fly to more than 190 countries.
Run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the airline has nine jets leased from the U.S. Marshals Service and private business and makes 48 flights a week with more than 4,000 immigrants aboard.
For decades, commercial flights were sufficient to return the modest number of non-Mexican deportees to their home countries. But in recent years as the non-Mexican deportee population ballooned — rising from 50,222 in 2006 to 76,102 last year — ICE started its own airline, hastening the deportation process.
“At $100 per night per person it costs us to keep them in detention, we don’t have any interest in holding anybody longer than we have to,” said Pat Reilly, an ICE spokeswoman.
The flights cost more than $53 million last year, $700 for each deportee. Like commercial carriers, ICE Air uses a network of hubs, including San Antonio International Airport. It was the departure point for flight 9351 to El Salvador two weeks ago.
The 120 detainees on board carry heavy emotional baggage: Returning home brings the joy of family and friends once again, but also induces the despair of being thrown back into the same economic hardship that pushed them to leave in the first place.
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