“The Decree of 19 August 1848”: The First Repatriation Commissions and Postwar Settlements Along the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Like all other wars that bring about destruction and chaos in their wake, these momentous ruptures in the historical structure are also moments of creativity and introspection surrounding the meaning of the nation, and its legacy. The end of the war simultaneously brought about the creation of the Department of Colonization because many amongst the intelligentsia believed that a failure to colonize and populate those areas lost to the US was the primary reason for this recent partition. To this end, the northern frontier was divided into three regions, and a Repatriate Commission was assigned to each: New Mexico, Texas and California. The primary function of these Repatriate Commissions, just like the Department of Colonization, was to identify, administer, and then to accommodate those Mexican citizens that opted to migrate southward across the new international boundary following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Because the New Mexico Territory was the most heavily populated, the creation of the First Repatriation Commission for this region was considered the most important of the three eventual assignments. Post-war instabilities, strapped financial resources, shifting geo-political boundaries, resistance by U.S. authorities, and internal accusations of financial mismanagement and corruption all contributed to the dissolution of these initial Repatriation Commissions. Legislation implemented to encourage Mexican citizens to return via the Department of Colonization and the Repatriation Commissions provided both the power of the Law and the agents of the government to the foundation of dozens of settlements along the newly established frontiers. In the end, colonies nevertheless emerged along the northern frontiers between the New Mexico Territory and through Baja California, due in large part to the will and survival skills of the repatriates themselves. Decree of 19 August 1848: The First Repatriation Commissions and Postwar Settlements Along the US Mexico Borderlands

United States and Mexico begin Interior Repatriation Initiative

United States and Mexico begin Interior Repatriation Initiative 
Tuesday, 02 October 2012 20:41 
Written by Imperial Valley News

El Paso, Texas - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Mexican Ministry of the Interior today announced the beginning of the Interior Repatriation Initiative (IRI), a new pilot to provide humane, safe and orderly repatriation of Mexican nationals to the interior of Mexico and ultimately to their hometowns, instead of returning them to towns on the U.S.-Mexico border.

ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) will provide air transportation via charter aircraft to Mexican nationals who emigrated from the interior of Mexico. Upon arrival in Mexico City, the Government of Mexico will provide them transportation to their places of origin. This initiative will allow the Government of Mexico to assist returning Mexican nationals in safely reintegrating into their communities.

"IRI reflects our commitment and ongoing bilateral effort with the government of Mexico to ensure strong, humane and effective enforcement of both nations' immigration laws," said ICE Director John Morton. "This initiative will better ensure that individuals repatriated to Mexico are removed in circumstances that are safe and controlled."

Gustavo Mohar Betancourt, Undersecretary of Mexico's population, migration and religious affairs said, "This initiative aims to collaborate and fully support border state authorities by reducing the number of Mexican nationals who are repatriated to the border region. The newly repatriated, often with no means to return home, are susceptible to becoming a part of criminal organizations as a means of survival."

The IRI will include Mexican nationals pending removal from all areas of the United States. Historically, a significant number of individuals are not from the northern border towns to which they are repatriated, leaving them in communities where they have no ties or family support. Removing Mexican nationals to the interior of Mexico is part of an effort to reduce repeat attempts to illegally enter the United States, avoid the loss of human life, and minimize the potential for exploitation of illegal migrants by human smuggling and trafficking organizations as well as other criminal organizations.

Individuals who participate in the pilot initiative are transferred from across the United States to the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, N.M., before departure on an IRI flight.

The first repatriation flight of 131 Mexican nationals departed El Paso International Airport Tuesday, Oct. 2 and flights are scheduled to continue this year through to Nov. 29. Mexican nationals participating in IRI are removed on charter flights via the ICE ERO Air Operations (IAO) Unit. Headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., IAO has supported ERO since 2006 by providing air transportation and removal coordination services to ERO field offices nationwide. Staffed by ERO officers, these air charters enable the agency to repatriate large groups of deportees in an efficient, expeditious and humane manner.

http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php/news/latest-news/1840-united-states-and-mexico-begin-interior-repatriation-initiative.html

U.S. suspends immigrant flights back to Mexico

U.S. suspends immigrant flights back to Mexico 

Written by Bob Ortega 

The Arizona Republic 

8:46 AM; September 11, 2012 

PHOENIX —The U.S. government has temporarily stopped a voluntary repatriation program to fly home undocumented Mexican immigrants caught trying to enter Arizona during the summer because there aren’t enough illegal border crossers to fill daily flights.

There have been no flights this year under the 8-year-old program designed to reduce immigrant deaths by dissuading Mexicans caught crossing the Arizona border from trying again in the fierce heat of summer.

Attempts to keep them going and justify the costs of the $100 million program by filling planes with deported criminals have apparently been blocked by the Mexican government, which didn’t want violent male offenders mixed in with women and children.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said they are still negotiating with the Mexican government to resume the program, though any agreement will likely be too late for any flights this year.

The U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gone back to the practice of returning most immigrants directly across the Arizona-Mexico border.

The Mexican Interior Repatriation Program had operated each summer since 2004 under an agreement between Homeland Security and the Mexican government aimed at reducing deaths in Arizona’s harsh deserts by deterring apprehended immigrants from immediately crossing again.

By flying undocumented Mexican immigrants from Tucson more than 1,100 miles south to Mexico City, rather than simply forcing them to walk back across the border, it was believed fewer would make the trek back north and seek out smugglers to try to lead them across again. But, as The Arizona Republic reported last year, there have been questions about the program’s effectiveness.

From 2004 to 2011, the government spent $90 million to $100 million to fly 125,164 undocumented immigrants back to Mexico from Tucson. The program peaked in the summer of 2010, when 23,384 immigrants were flown back, according to the DHS.

But last summer, with a plunge in migration that officials attributed to the weak economy and tougher immigration enforcement, only 8,893 immigrants were repatriated. Flights carrying up to 146 people were cut to once from twice daily last year.

With the numbers dropping, the DHS and the Mexican government earlier this year began renegotiating the terms. Under the original deal, only first-time crossers and families from Mexico’s interior states were eligible for the voluntary flights.

On arrival in Mexico City, they were given bus tickets to their hometowns. The United States paid the full cost of the program. The Mexican Consulate in Tucson interviewed each person to make sure the return was voluntary.

But this year, according to an Associated Press report on Monday, Mexican officials balked at a plan by the DHS to add immigrants with criminal convictions to the planes to make the flights more cost-effective. DHS officials would not confirm that account.

Mexican diplomatic officials in Tucson, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., declined to answer questions about the disagreement. In a written statement, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington said the Mexican government continues to work with the U.S. government on “measures to prevent the loss of human life at our common border.”

Both governments have agreed to a separate program starting next month, called the Interior Removal Initiative, under which undocumented Mexican immigrants from across the U.S. could be flown back to Mexico. That program would not be voluntary.

More than 1,500 border crossers have died in Arizona’s desert over the past decade, with most of the deaths during the summer. Before the flight program, most undocumented immigrants caught in Arizona would simply be returned to the border, where officials would watch them cross back into Mexico, and where, officials acknowledged, most immediately sought the help of smugglers to try to cross again.

Critics have questioned the effectiveness of the flight program in reducing repeated crossing attempts by immigrants.

As The Republic previously reported, Customs and Border Protection records showed that, within months, hundreds of migrants flown south had been caught trying to cross illegally again.

Although it appeared that the rate at which migrants tried to cross did drop significantly, it was impossible to be certain because the Border Patrol would not provide complete recidivism data. From 2008 to 2010, 6 to 12percent of those flown home were rearrested that summer.

A 2010 review by the Government Accounting Office concluded that ICE failed to track data in a way that allowed it to accurately measure how well the repatriation program worked.

From 2004 to 2010, the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, which accounts for most of Arizona’s border with Mexico, tallied 1,362 migrant deaths. The numbers peaked in 2010, with 249 deaths, but have dropped the past two years.

Through the end of August this year, there have been 150 deaths. However, immigrant groups argue that the numbers are still high given the huge drops in estimated immigration over the past couple of years.

“The people dying on the border, we’re seeing, are mostly people who are very poor. There’s many indigenous people who are walking over with ‘coyotes,’” said Juanita Molina, executive director of Border Action Network, a Tucson human-rights group focused on migrant issues.

Although she sees some potential issues with the flights, Molina said that simply dropping people off at the border, as is now happening again, “makes them extremely vulnerable to being victimized.”

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20120911/NJNEWS18/309110014/U-S-suspends-immigrant-flights-back-to-Mexico 

El 40% de migrantes repatriados son veracruzanos

El gobierno del Estado brinda apoyo y asistencia a todos los paisanos que son repatriados de Estados Unidos
Escrito por Carolina Miranda  
ElGolfo.Info 
11 Mayo 2012

Xalapa, Ver.- El representante del Gobierno de Veracruz en Tamaulipas y en el Valle de Texas, Patricio Mora Domínguez, aseguró que de los 2 mil mexicanos que son repatriados anualmente de Estados Unidos al país, entre el 40 y 30 por ciento son veracruzanos.

En entrevista, resaltó que el gobierno del Estado brinda apoyo y asistencia a todos los paisanos que son repatriados o regresan por si mismos a su lugar de origen.

"Estamos hablando que al año se repatrían unas 2 mil personas, de esas un porcentajes de entre 30 y 40 por ciento son de nuestro estado, que muchas veces intentan retornar y el fin es darles la asistencia", dijo.

El funcionario estatal dio a conocer que se estima que unos 200 mil personas originarias de Veracruz habitan tanto en Estados Unidos como en Tamaulipas, muchos de los cuales tienen más de 50 años viviendo en esas regiones.

"Se hablaba que había unos 100 mil, 200 mil veracruzanos en ambos lados de la frontera, pero los que están en Reynosa emigraron hace más de 40 o 50 años con la cuestión de Pemex, posteriormente en los 80 llega la industria maquiladora y eso permite ofertar más empleo", explicó.

Recordó que cuando un veracruzano fallece en la Unión Americana también brindan todo el apoyo necesario a las familias para el traslado del cuerpo.

"También cuando fallece algún paisano nuestro en Estados Unidos el gobierno de Veracruz actúa de manera muy importante e inmediata en el traslado a sus lugares de origen, a partir del traslado aéreo a la ciudad de México y bueno de México a sus lugares de origen", aseveró.

Agregó que el gobernador Javier Duarte de Ochoa ha dado la instrucción puntual de darle todo el respaldo de su administración a los migrantes veracruzanos.

http://www.elgolfo.info/elgolfo/nota/113875-el-40-de-migrantes-repatriados-son-veracruzanos/

Life after deportation for U.S.-born children

Life after deportation for U.S.-born children
By Bill Whitaker
CBS News
8 May 2012

(CBS News) TIJUANA, Mexico - The U.S. Border Patrol announced a new strategy Tuesday for catching illegal immigrants from Mexico: using improved intelligence to target repeat offenders.

These days, though, many Mexicans heading home outnumbers those coming to the U.S. Many of them had been deported, the result of stepped-up enforcement. CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports what happens when families are forced to leave.

Every day Patricia Herrera walks her three children -- 12-year-old Yasmin, 10-year-old Elizabeth, and 8-year-old Vicente -- to school.

But these days, this familiar routine is on unfamiliar terrain. This family from Salt Lake City -- these American children -- have been uprooted to Tijuana, Mexico. These English-speaking children struggle to learn in Spanish.

"It's different and it's hard for me to understand what they're saying here," said one of the Herrera children.

Right across from the house they share with relatives is the fortified fence that marks the U.S. border. When Patricia was a baby, her mother sneaked her across. She grew up thinking she was a U.S citizen until she was stopped one day by federal agents. Caught a second time last October, she was deported. To keep her family intact, she brought her children -- U.S. citizens -- over in February.

"I was sad," said one of the Herrera children.

"I was scared, I was shock, I was nervous," said another.

Patricia Herrera said she is not adjusting well. "I never thought it would come to this, but it has. And it's hard
for them."

Four years ago, Tijuana schools started seeing a steady flow of American students whose parents had been deported. When the U.S. economy fell into deeper recession, that flow became a flood. The schools are overwhelmed.

This school, Francisco Villa, is a prime example of what's going on. Two years ago, there were no U.S. students enrolled. Last year, six enrolled; this year, 35. In all Tijuana schools, 2,000 students from the U.S. have enrolled so far this year.

Most feel trapped between two worlds. Cesar was born in Washington State. "I feel more American, he said, "because all my life I was over there."

Jasleen was born in California. Whitaker asked her how is it different in Mexico than the U.S. "Like over there is cleaner," she said. "Here, it's kind of dangerous, like when it's dark."

Patricia can't work because she can't speak Spanish well enough. She studies every night with her children. She survives on money her family sends from Utah every week.

"I live right here on the borderline too," she said. "And it's hard to know that I look over there and [I say], 'Oh, my God, if I could only get through there.' But I know I can't. So I have to accept and learn to live my life here."

It's a hard lesson many families from north of the border are having to learn.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57430387/life-after-deportation-for-u.s.-born-children/