ABSTRACT
Edgardo came to the United States in 2000 from Guerrero, Mexico. He crossed the Southern border where he was detained, deported, and treated by the border patrol, as he says, like “an animal.” Entering successfully on his second attempt, he came to California to join his brother. Now, despite having lived in the United States for 12 years, he still worries about being deported. In an interview, he told me:
They took one of my wife's co-workers. They went to his home, to his apartment. ICE arrived and knocked at his door. It was about 5:40 in the morning and they were all getting ready to leave for work. So ICE got there and asked for some person. He told ICE that no such person lived there. The ICE official said, “Ok, can I see your identification?” The man took out his identification and showed it to ICE. ICE didn't detain him at that moment. They asked him which car was his, and he pointed it out to them. He went back inside, and when he came back out and passed by in his car, they flashed the lights on him … they flashed the lights and they detained him … they told him that he did not have documentation. “You don't have papers and we are going to detain you,” they said to him. He was with his wife and his son. His son is a US citizen and he asked, “Why are you detaining him? He didn't do anything. He was just at his house. You went to our house.” The ICE official replied, “I know we went looking for another person who wasn't at that address, but you were there and unfortunately he doesn't have papers so we are taking him.” They gave him no other options, he did not get to go to court, nothing. They took him at about 7:00 in the morning. At about 8:00 am he called and said they were in [a town one hour to the south]. [By] 1:00 pm in the afternoon he was already in Tijuana. 1
