Keywords

1 Introduction

This chapter investigates the everyday securities of Mexican deportees who have experienced family separation as a result of being deported from the United States to Tijuana, Mexico. Tijuana, one of the largest border cities in Mexico, hosts an increasing number of deported persons and is a common place for migrants to cross into the United States. We concentrate on mapping the conditions that deportees in Tijuana endure and the impact of family separation after deportation.

A considerable amount of scholarship addresses transnational family relationships and maintaining these relations across borders (e.g., Baldassar & Merla, 2014; Al-Sharmani et al., 2019). Many of these studies focus on labour migration, but some empirical cases also deal with forced migration (e.g., Tiilikainen, 2020). The literature often concentrates on care relationships (e.g., McKay, 2006; Parreñas, 2005). Melander et al. (2020, p. 104) speak about gendered care triangles and point out that migrant women perform mothering even across borders, whereas migrating fathers are more absent in their children’s lives (see also Al-Ali, 2002). However, gendered patterns in transnational care also mean that fathers take up new roles and transmit the idea of migrant work as a life choice to their children, as Telve (2020) shows when analysing the generations of Estonian men who have migrated to Finland for work.

In our chapter we analyse both women’s and men’s experiences after being deported from the United States to Mexico and separated from at least some of their children, who remain in the United States. Our interest is in how these ‘dreamer parents’ arrange their lives while separated from their family and perform their family life across borders. We use the term ‘dreamer parents’ because their children, commonly referred to as ‘dreamers’, arrived with them in the United States without residence permits, but have later been given the possibility to remain in the country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy (Schreiber, 2018, p. 24). Some of our data also concerns individuals who were brought to the United States by their migrant parents as small children but were later deported to Mexico, while their own children and spouses (with different residency statuses) have remained in the United States.

To understand the years during which many of our informants lived under the threat of deportation and the uncertain situation they still endure while separated from their families, we have turned to the academic discussion on deportability, which has brought an understanding of the vulnerabilities embodied by migrants who are under the continuous threat of deportation (De Genova, 2002; Talavera et al., 2010; Willen, 2007). Deportability may also continue for many of our informants, who plan to go back to the United States to reunite with their families. Deportability can ‘last for years, and even if a person is granted residence, deportation may still be possible in the future’ (Horsti & Pirkkalainen, 2021, para. 3). Some analyses of everyday life post-deportation (Albicker & Velasco, 2016; Talavera et al., 2010; Velasco & Albicker, 2013) point out that the adverse effects of deportability are tied to an ongoing temporality rather than sudden trauma. However, scholars have also stressed that deportability is not the only defining aspect of a person’s life; instead, the fabric of everyday life may contain many different supportive elements as well (Khosravi, 2018; Talavera et al., 2010). Nonetheless, scholarship on the psychological impacts of family separation reveals serious mental health outcomes for migrants (e.g., Rousseau et al., 2004; Nickerson et al., 2010) and suggests that the experience can be traumatic (Gulbas et al., 2015; Ruiz Marrujo, 2014; Ojeda et al., 2020).

The embodied effects of deportability, by which we mean the whole process of deportation and the years spent in limbo before being able to rebuild one’s life, affect a person’s sense of security. The concept of everyday (in)security helps to unpack this temporal precarity. Everyday in(security) sheds light on how groups of people who are targets of security projects are themselves often living in vulnerable situations that are worsened through popular discourses of danger and threat (Bondi, 2014; Crawford & Hutchinson, 2015; Philo, 2014; Waite et al., 2014). Feminist scholars have investigated such ‘geopolitics of fear’ from the perspective of everyday life and shown that certain discourses, such as the threat of terrorism, are used globally to legitimize more punitive and restricted societies (Butler, 2006; Pain & Smith, 2008).

The concept of everyday (in)security also includes the lived realities of one’s sense of security while experiencing different types of bordering and securitizing processes related to the whole process of deportation. Everyday security can be understood as one’s attempt to create one’s own sense of security (Leinonen & Pellander, 2020). In our study, the dual condition of (in)security refers, on the one hand, to the emotional and physical consequences of deportation, and on the other hand, to other possible outcomes of a sudden life change.

The chapter is structured as follows: The initial concern is to contextualize the particular conditions in Tijuana and the influence of this social context on deportees’ (in)security. Next, we describe our methodological frame and the three themes that emerged from our analysis. In the discussion, we engage with the findings about deportees’ conditions of (in)security and experiences of family separation and parenthood across borders.

2 Tijuana as a Destination City for Deportees

Tijuana has historically been a city where migratory movements and deportations meet, and this history affects the current conditions for deportees. Tijuana’s role as a border city has changed noticeably since 2005. Historically, Tijuana has been one of the cities in which persons aiming to cross the border from Mexico to the United States gathered. Nowadays, Tijuana receives more deportees from the United States than any other Mexican city (Albicker & Velasco, 2016).

Economic motivations were the foremost reason for emigration from Mexico and other countries of Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, however, the threat of crime-related violence is the main cause of displacement and migration within the American continent (Ramos Vidal, 2018, pp. 302–304). Migratory movement through Tijuana cannot easily be divided into the categories of ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ migration. Instead, people leave their countries of origin for a variety of pressing reasons. As scholars have suggested, the categories of forced and voluntary migration are often overlapping and hard to separate (Erdal & Oeppen, 2018). The phenomena studied in this chapter would perhaps be best described as non-privileged migration, falling under several different categories and with the reasons for leaving varying. Gibney (2013) has pointed out that deportation can be considered a form of forced migration, due to the coercive logic behind it.

As part of the immigration control power of states, deportation is used to remove individuals who lack residence permits, overstay their visas or have been refused asylum. Deportation is also imposed in the case of violations of criminal law or as the result of a judgement by state officials that certain non-citizens represent a security or criminal threat (Gibney, 2013, p. 119). The majority of Mexican deportees from the United States are sent to the border city closest to the immigration detention centre where they were held. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not consider migrants’ geographical origins when carrying out deportations. For nationals of other countries, ICE generally arranges charter flights to the country of origin, though some deportees from Central American countries are also deported to Mexican border cities.

The process of deportation generally results in the person being issued a prohibition on entering the United States at any port of entry. The prohibition can be permanent or last 3–10 years (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2019). In the case of Mexican deportees, the prohibition on entering the United States is one of the main reasons for staying in border cities. First, the decision to stay is often motivated by wanting to be in contact with one’s family. When staying in a border city, one’s family can visit if they have the documents required for travelling to Mexico. Second, despite the risks, many deportees will try to cross back into the United States. If the individual is arrested again in the United States, they can be charged with a federal offense and face imprisonment (United States Department of Justice, 2008).

The situation in Tijuana includes endemic social exclusion, poverty, violence and high levels of criminality, as well as the constant arrival of migrants from different countries and the increasing number of deportations from the United States. This context is also a breeding ground for structural violence (Galtung, 1996) comprised of oppressive conditions and policies that are systematically used to limit migrants’ possibilities for agency. This structural violence is reproduced across the social spectrum through daily practices in which social exclusion, discrimination and other violent situations affect the majority of the population in the city.

Governmental support is limited for Mexican deportees living in Tijuana, and deportees often have minimal opportunities for reintegration after being deported (Velasco & Albicker, 2013). The complexities of Tijuana’s social context can be seen in the practical difficulties that deportees endure in their everyday lives. While some deportees are in regular contact with and receive economic support from family members in the United States, many others lose contact with their families and lack any kind of support. There are many reasons for losing touch with one’s family: Economic and residency-related adversities may make it hard for family members in the United States to maintain contact. If the deportation was the result of committing crimes in the United States, the family might not want to be in contact with the deported family member. Sometimes deportees lose knowledge of their families’ whereabouts after deportation.

Consequently, activists and shelters are often the only help deported migrants have in finding work and a place to stay. However, the difference in wage levels between the United States and Tijuana may be so large that it directly affects the deportee’s willingness to start a new life in Mexico. In addition, some deportees are deeply distressed, which makes it difficult to start building a life after deportation. Loneliness and family separation play a big role in deportees’ everyday lives at the Mexico-US border. The first years after deportation can be spent in a state of shock, and deportees have to start building a new life amidst the confusion. In words of one Mexican deported woman: ‘You cannot believe the separation is actually happening. I ended up in Mexico having to start from scratch’ (Mary, 2018).

The current situation in Mexico-US border cities involves the daily entanglement of migration, deportation and family separation (see Chap. 2). This was seen with the arrival of thousands of persons, mostly from Central America, at the border in 2018 and 2019. This migration was called ‘migrant caravans’ in the media. One critical issue was that minors were travelling in the caravans without other members of their family. Another issue was that members of the ‘caravans’ crossed the border and applied for political asylum in the United States. The response of the US immigration authorities was to negotiate a deal with Mexico to allow asylum seekers to be deported to Mexico while their asylum petitions were processed. This agreement influenced all deportees in a negative way. Now they could not await their proceedings at US detention centres, and dozens of families were separated. As of the end of 2020, more than 500 migrant children remain in the United States, while the location of their parents is unknown because they were arrested and placed in different detention centres (Ainsley & Soboroff, 2020). Some parents who arrived with the ‘caravans’ have been deported to Mexican border cities, and others to Central America. This situation exemplifies the consequences of US immigration and border policies and their effects on personal and social contexts.

3 Methods and Data

Our data and research material builds on Angel Iglesias Ortiz’s fieldwork in Tijuana, which took place over 2 months in autumn 2020,Footnote 1 as well as on the digital archive Humanizando la Deportación (Humanizing Deportation), which is a large digital video storytelling project launched by the University of California, Davis. During ethnographic fieldwork investigating the everyday at the border, Iglesias Ortiz collected three interviews concerning deportees’ family separation. The interviews were conducted in Spanish with an activist, ‘Elena’, from Madres y Familias Deportadas en Acción (Deported Mothers and Families in Action), and with two Mexican deportees, ‘Lucy’ and ‘Ray’. We use pseudonyms for all three interviewees. The interviewee from Madres y Familias Deportadas en Acción consented to us revealing her name, as she was interviewed as a representative of her organization. However, since her real name is not of essence in our analysis, we have decided to use a pseudonym for her as well, though we have kept the real organization name. The limited number of direct interviews included in the data is due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place in Tijuana during Iglesias Ortiz’s fieldwork and is one limitation of our dataset.

Our second source of data, the Humanizando la Deportación (n.d.) archive, contains over 300 digital stories by 250 community storytellers, all of whom are deported migrants. The video stories are narrated mostly by adult women and men who share their experiences regarding deportation and their personal and family situations. The majority of stories are from Mexican deportees, but some are from people from Central or South America. The project staff has arranged the stories thematically to help researchers, journalists and other activists.

For this chapter, we carried out a thematic analysis of 35 of the 70 stories categorized by Humanizando la Deportación under the topic of ‘family separation’. The stories were selected based on their informative value: we analysed every story with a somewhat coherent narrative about family separation and dreamer parents. One story is from a Peruvian man, and the rest are from Mexican deportees (19 females and 16 males). Some stories are narrated in English or have subtitles in English. Others are completely in Spanish, and in those cases, Iglesias Ortiz has translated the quotes used in this chapter.

We approached the 35 stories with an eye to the general and particular situations that parent deportees endure regarding family separation as well as the aspect of (in)security. We developed our analytical frame by identifying three central themes that illuminate the different ways dreamer parents endure insecurity and arrange or fail to arrange their everyday lives. The themes are: (in)security and precarity after arrival in Tijuana, the liminal state post-deportation and rebuilding a life. The first theme has a distinct temporal element, as it describes a stage that many storytellers and informants experienced immediately after deportation to Tijuana. The second and third themes are not temporally arranged. Instead, they describe different ways in which our informants were either stuck in a liminal state or were able to build a new life and rearrange their family lives amid adversity.

4 (In)security and Precarity During the Deportation Process and After Arrival in Tijuana

Our analysis starts with mapping the general conditions of the deportation process to understand its consequences on deportees. Here we focus on the constant insecurity that deportees face and the range of difficult conditions that appear in deportees’ everyday lives.

A recurrent theme in our interview data and in the narrations of the Humanizando la Deportación project is the mistreatment and abuse experienced by deportees in detention centres. Deportees feel that they were treated like criminals during the process of being arrested, processed and deported to Mexico. The length of detention depends on the legal process and how quickly the immigration judge issues the removal order. One specific concern during detention is that many deportees have no opportunity to contact their families, who are understandably very worried that their loved one has just disappeared. Our interviewee Lucy was deported to Tijuana in 2017 after living more than 20 years in the United States. She describes how her attempts to contact her daughter were denied by the staff at the detention centre:

There are phones for the deportees, but they are broken. I spent hours and hours knocking on the door of the cell to get my call. I wanted to know something about my daughter. They never answered my request. They [the immigration authorities] do not care about our children; they don’t care if our children are taken into custody or if they disappear.

As Lucy’s experience reveals, being detained and then deported is often traumatic and worsens the precarious condition of deportees. The separation from and lack of contact with family members increases one’s precariousness even before arrival in Tijuana. In fact, the emotional consequences of family separation is another relevant theme repeated in the testimonies we analysed. The whole process of deportation has a traumatic impact on all members of the family. For instance, if the arrest by ICE agents is made in the family’s home, children are exposed to the traumatic experience of seeing their parents arrested and removed from their house (Ruiz Marrujo, 2014, p. 397).

In our data, several of the deportees, mostly women who were single parents with small children, were unable to contact their families during their detention and after deportation. Family separation affects the overall wellbeing of members of the family. For example, the impacts of deportation on minor children include sadness, depression, loneliness and isolation, among others (Ojeda et al., 2020, p. 8). Our interviewee Lucy remembers the first Christmas after her deportation as the worst ever. She and her 6-year-old daughter were in Mexico, separated from her other children. She says: ‘We were so sad that we went to sleep early. We missed my sons so much we could not stop crying.’ Lucy was deported alone but decided that her daughter could not live in the United States with her two sons who have American citizenship. Lucy also has a third son, who is a dreamer. His residency in the United States is based on DACA. It was very common in our data that members of the same family had different residency statuses in the United States.

Lucy’s story exemplifies how family separation is a permanent aspect of the everyday life of deportees. The emotional aspect of (in)security is directly related to the experience of family separation and the impossibilities of parenting under these adverse conditions. As scholars have noted, children in the United States whose parents are deported also experience negative emotional consequences (González & Morgan Consoli, 2012).

The emotional distress of deportees overlaps with their material needs in the place they have been deported to. The case of Gerardo shows the daily difficulties and significance of family separation in the early stages after deportation:

I was deported to the city of Tijuana, I lived in the United States for 12 years. During that time, I met my wife, with whom I had two daughters. Those daughters were left without a father. […] They are young and miss their father, who is not around to be with them. […]

The first few days [in Tijuana] were very stressful since I knew no one, I had nowhere to stay. I didn’t have a bed, any food, I had to live on the streets. I also couldn’t communicate with my family because I didn’t have the phone number I needed to reach them. (Sánchez Pérez, 2017)

In one of our interviews, Elena, the founder of the organization Madres y Familias Deportadas en Acción, states that the first hours and days after deportation are critical. Elena’s organization assists migrants and deportees by providing clothing and arranging activities and therapy. She explains that ‘a deportee is in shock and remains in a state of denial for some time.’ It takes time for deportees to realize and accept that their previous life in the United States is gone and that they may even lose contact with their family. According to Elena, the security of a deported person depends on whether they receive economic and emotional support. Additionally, Elena finds the ban on re-entering the United States to be the first emotional burden on parents. According to her, the first days after deportation is when reality strikes and the deported person realizes that crossing the border is dangerous and the probability of success is low. Our interviews and the Humanizando la Deportación stories show that the majority of deportees remain in Tijuana, aiming to keep in contact with their relatives in the United States. Some have attempted to cross again, unsuccessfully.

Observations of the everyday in Tijuana during fieldwork revealed an institutional and governmental void, which increases insecurity and precarious conditions for deportees. While deportees’ initial basic needs of a place to stay, food and clothing are often provided for by local activists, NGOs and shelters, all deportees face a risk of becoming homeless. In Tijuana, up to 91% of homeless persons arrived in the city as deportees, so this risk is very tangible and real (Velasco & Albicker, 2013, pp. 8–9). According to a local newspaper, about 3000 homeless persons were living in Tijuana’s northern and central areas in 2018 (Torres, 2018). Furthermore, 69% of homeless persons living in this area of the city are regular consumers of narcotics (Velasco & Albicker, 2013, p. 11). In the testimonies we analysed, not having regular contact with one’s family increased the likelihood of addiction and homelessness.

Being a persona deportada (deportee) also carries a social stigma that may cause further difficulties for starting a new life in Tijuana. Elena explains that ‘the moment they step outside the detention office, their odyssey starts. They start walking on the streets and they are easily recognized because of the detention outfit, which is a white t-shirt, grey pants and sweatshirt.’ Wearing the ‘deportation outfit’ brings the first difficulties for the deportee. They are easily recognized by members of criminal organizations, who may approach and attempt to recruit them. If the deportee speaks English, she or he will be more valuable for the criminal organization to smuggle across the border. Elena has witnessed the ways in which newly arrived deportees are socially rejected and framed as ‘thugs’. In this way, deportees are subject to a double rejection as ‘unwanted persons’ in both the United States and in the Mexican cities to which they are deported. This rejection is grounded in the discourses of who represents a threat to society and who is seen as a valuable member (Bondi, 2014; Crawford & Hutchinson, 2015; Philo, 2014). Expressions of rejection are part of deportability and the structural adversities of poverty and social exclusion.

Precarity in the everyday of deported parents appears in different forms. They endure poor conditions due to the interrelation of social, personal and institutional adversities. Socially, they face stigmatization, discrimination and criminalization. On the personal level, deportees carry the emotional instability of family separation and may also grieve the loss of their previous life. This leads to a state of mental distress, which further complicates their efforts to build a new life in Tijuana. The more severe aspects of precarity include homelessness and addictions. In the following section, we discuss how the (in)securities experienced by deportees have a transitional aspect.

5 The Liminal State for Deportees

Deportation represents the end of one stage in a person’s life, but the transition to the following stage involves uncertainty and a sense of incompleteness. Various facets of the daily life of deportees are connected to a liminal state that may continue for years or even become permanent. This liminal state for deportees is characterized by uncertainty in their personal and legal status. The following extract from the poem ‘Somebody, Anybody, Help Me’, written by Felix Peralta (2018) and performed as part of his narrative for the Humanizando la Deportación project, exemplifies this personal uncertainty:

I am still the same, lost in a different world, so close but so far away. Maybe if I close my eyes, it will all disappear; No, still here, great big wall. Please, somebody, help. Anybody, help me.

Felix’s narrative illustrates an experience of disconnection with previous and current experiences in deportees’ everyday life. This quote shows intersecting temporalities and a complex personal relation with the context in the period after deportation.

Temporality in this liminal state is influenced by the administrative and legal status of deportees and their families. A frequent situation for Mexican deportees who had lived in the United States for many years or who had been taken to the United States as children is that they lack the necessary personal documentation in the Mexican institutional context. It is also common to have lost contact with family members in Mexico, and many deportees do not know anyone in the country. The lack of material and emotional support increases feelings of uncertainty, and the possibilities for re-establishing a sense of stability diminish. In her story ‘Broken Families’, Mary (2018) exemplifies how isolation develops into an identity crisis and sense of not belonging:

I did try to leave again but they caught me. We ran at night, we jumped the fence, we walked in the desert […] I was detained for 30 days, and during that time, I realized that I did not want to return […] to the United States illegally. […]

[People don’t understand] you chose to leave [Mexico] and didn’t want to be here. You end up losing your close family […] You feel like a stranger with them and you end up not belonging anywhere.

The quote shows that deportees experience rejection and difficulties in adapting to their new reality. Many deportees do not feel comfortable in Mexico, and they do not identify as Mexicans. They become outsiders in both countries at once. These sorts of experiences prevent or delay transitioning out of the liminal state.

Being reunited with one’s family would contribute to a positive transition to overcome this liminal state. However, the prospect of being reunited depends on the ability of the deported person to enter the United States or the possibility of the family living in Mexico permanently. However, in our interviews and the video stories we analysed, this was not possible for anyone. Deportees preferred their families to stay in the United States due to the economic conditions in Mexico. Thus, families remain separated.

In the cases in which family members have US citizenship or residence permits, family members can go to Mexico to visit their deported relative. These families, although separated, may be able to build their lives, as they are able to keep in regular physical contact. However, there are many cases in which family members lack residency in the United States and cannot leave the country. These instances represent a total separation.

The impossibility of visiting deported parents results in contradictory options for escaping the liminal state. As we explained before, the decision of deportees to stay in Tijuana or another border city is also directly linked to the inability of their families to travel to Mexico. These deportees stay close to the border so they can try to cross again. Elena explains that she has seen this situation dozens of times: ‘Many of them will try to cross back. Many of them have been caught and deported four, five, or more times.’ Every time a person is arrested and deported, their criminal record grows and the resulting penalty increases. Deportees are warned by US immigration authorities that they will be prosecuted with federal charges if they are arrested again in the United States. The chances of crossing the border without being arrested and deported again are very slim.

The dream of going back to the United States and reuniting with one’s family is often just a dream. For example, our interviewee Lucy was given a 10-year prohibition on re-entering the United States, but her legal process is still unresolved because she argues that her former lawyer’s carelessness contributed to her deportation. She has appealed the court’s decision ‘more than two times, but all have been rejected.’ At the time of the interview, she had been waiting for the results of her last appeal for 6 months. Lucy acknowledges that her appeal has slight chances of being successful, and she does not know when the final decision will be taken. The options for returning to the United States even after the ban period are limited. Deportees must apply for a waiver to get permission to return to the United States and then apply for an immigrant visa supported by an employer or a family member. Elena and Lucy explain that having the resources to go through this legal process and to pay for an immigration attorney is difficult. In cases like Lucy’s, the liminal state continues because the prospect of permanent family reunion depends on the opportunity to go back to the United States.

While some stay in a liminal state for years, others decide to settle in Tijuana. The story of Luis describes his whole process after deportation, including his transition out of the liminal state:

They separated me from my family and I arrived in Tijuana despondent […] The event leading to my deportation brought me to detention centers […] They have you handcuffed by the hands, by your feet […] After my arrival here in Tijuana, I made three attempts, I wanted to cross. […] [In the detention centre] they treated me very poorly, it was this reality that made me decide to stay here in Tijuana. I got into drugs, I lived in the canal […].

I want to send a message to all my comrades, to deportees, I know that it’s difficult, it’s hard being deported because they separate you from your family, from the people that one loves so much, but I want to send them a message: that they have passion in order to move forward. (García García, 2017)

The story of Luis presents the dire circumstances that deportees face in Tijuana, but it also conveys the possibility for a transition. The harsh treatment during detention in the United States resulted in his decision to stay in Tijuana. Luis’s liminal state included three failed attempts to cross back into the United States and a prolonged period of insecurity because of the negative personal and contextual conditions in Tijuana. Luis was homeless and used drugs. Nonetheless, he was able to overcome his precarious condition, eventually establishing himself as a street vendor and getting back in contact with his family.

The liminal state we have discussed in this section is the period, often prolonged or even permanent, in which the deportee does not know how to go on with his or her life. It is a stage in which practical issues and legal processes remain unfinished, and thus uncertainty continues to affect deportees’ everyday life. In terms of temporality, the liminal state can also be a continuation of deportation, from which a deportee is unable to transition. This state appears as a by-product of deportability. Considering the number of homeless deportees in Tijuana, there is the potential for a permanent liminal state in which the insecurities of life after deportation affect the person on a daily basis. The ability of deportees to achieve stability in Tijuana is closely connected to whether they can live a transnational life with family visits across borders.

Transcending this liminal state depends on having legal, economic and social resources and emotional support. The prospects of reunification play a significant role in the liminality at this stage of transition. As seen through the stories presented, resources and support may not be available for all deportees, not only in Tijuana but in Mexican border cities in general. Nonetheless, there are also personal stories that show that the transition to a new life is possible.

6 Enduring Pain and Rebuilding Life

The data collected during fieldwork and the narrations in the Humanizando la Deportación project also include stories of successful reintegration and personal development. Some stories show a mixture of being stuck in a liminal state and elements of moving on and finding meaning. Nonetheless, the stories demonstrate that it is possible to create everyday security in the complex social context in Tijuana. Describing this possibility, however, does not mean that the adverse effects of deportation should be overlooked. Often, even positive life changes are judged in comparison to an even more difficult life as an undocumented migrant in the United States.

One of the interviewees, Ray, a 64-year-old taxi driver, described how his life had improved after deportation. In Tijuana he was able to make a living and had even saved money and bought a house. ‘They did me a favour when they deported me. We are Mexicans, and we will never have a better life than in our country’, Ray says. One of the key aspects of his improved life is that his children are adults and US citizens, so they can visit him. Thus, he does not have to endure family separation, but can instead concentrate on building his own life in Mexico. When asked about the everyday violence in Tijuana, Ray says: ‘Yes, there are bad things, but I do not have anything to do with it.’ His everyday security is intertwined with better possibilities to earn a living, and transnational family life suits Ray’s life situation well.

Of the narrators of the 35 digital stories, seven mention that their life had either improved, or that they had developed ways to endure the loss of home and family. All but one of these narrations were by men, and many of them had been involved with criminal activities in the United States or committed an offence and served a prison sentence, after which they were deported. For these men deportation was an opportunity to change the direction of their life. The men who had been living in the United States since childhood were able to utilize their language skills in the job market in Tijuana, find employment and escape a life of crime in their new location. Miguel describes his path:

We use our English to our advantage. We put it in use out here. It’s a great thing. […] I saw this opportunity out here and started to work at a call center. Second chance, you know, to start over. (Ángel, 2018)

Miguel’s story, like all the stories that were selected for analysis, also includes separation. Miguel was separated from his son, who was left in the United States when he was deported. However, Miguel does not consider separation as the main aspect of his everyday life. He narrates how his life has changed for the better since deportation. This may reflect gendered patterns of care, but also the difficulties racialized men encounter in the United States, especially if they live as undocumented migrants without supporting legal and social structures.

For women, deportation and the resulting separation from their children seemed in all cases to have been emotionally almost too much to bear. For single women, the insecurities of the everyday in Tijuana were especially heightened. Nonetheless, some women also found new meaning for their lives after deportation. Many women were engaged in activism and helping other women in similar situations. For example, one of the interviewees, Lucy, collaborates with Madres y Familias Deportadas en Acción. Mothers in the digital stories also told about their activism, including Yolanda, who started the group:

I asked the Lord to give me a signal telling me what to do with my life. What to do to endure this great pain. And that’s how I came to start this group, Madres Deportadas. Women of different nationalities started showing up. Even women from Europe were in our group. Central Americans, the majority Mexicans. The group started as a support group, offering comprehension, esteem. Over time we grew. We realized that our love for our children is so big that it was raising our expectations, expectations that we’d see them again. That we’d return again legally, thinking that they are our motivation, our strength, the reason why we get up every day despite living a daily mourning, a constant interminable loss. […] The Dreamer Moms group is really a blessing, a gift from God. We’ve learned to be resilient, to be strong, to be brave. (Varona, 2018)

Yolanda’s story is an example of a different kind of future than that of economic success, which some of the deported men described. Like many other deported women, Yolanda has found new meaning for her life in the activism of the Madres Deportadas. As she describes, the group has offered her a medium for transferring her difficulties into action. Yolanda’s security is thus intertwined with the possibility of sharing her grief, as well as in agency to act for policy change.

Our analysis has revealed many of the horrifying circumstances brought on by deportation and family separation. Nonetheless, the consequences are not the same for everyone. The men whose situations we discussed in this section have in fact been able to turn their lives around and were living a secure life after deportation. This phenomenon was gendered, however, and our data did not show that women had similar life paths after deportation. Instead, they struggled to find meaning and security for their lives in Tijuana. However, some women sought out activism to find a purpose and to share their pain with other mothers in similar situations. The analysis in this section shows that the consequences of deportation vary, and deportees are sometimes able to produce securities even in the midst of greatly insecure circumstances.

7 Conclusion

For thousands of people in Tijuana, the triad of migration, deportation and family separation has become their daily reality. In our chapter, we have explored this phenomenon through the concepts of everyday (in)security and deportability. We found that deportees embody an experience of (in)security that is dependent on a multiplicity of structural and personal factors. As has been discussed by deportability scholars such as Talavera et al. (2010), we too found that the everyday life of deportees contains combined aspects of precarity, liminality and also the potential for building a new life. We pointed out the precarious conditions affecting deportees after deportation and found that the effects of deportation on informants’ relationships with their families were gendered. Many deportees faced permanent separation, and men who were unable to see their families were particularly susceptible to addiction and extreme precarity. However, men were sometimes able to ‘start over’ after deportation, whereas none of the women in our data described being satisfied with their new lives after deportation. Women suffered from anxiety and other mental health problems, but were sometimes able to find meaning and belonging through activism.

In the beginning of this chapter, we explained how one’s sense of (in)security is connected to the processes of inclusion and exclusion, which manifest in relation to who is presented as a threat to society and who is seen as a beneficial member of society. The figure of the deported migrant embodies a twofold sense of (in)security in the everyday: many of the informants in our study were seen as ‘unwanted’ in both of their countries of identification. In the United States they were presented as dangerous illegal immigrants, and in Mexico they were looked down upon and at risk of becoming outcasts from society. The concept of ‘hyper-precarity’ by Waite et al. (2014) describes well the state of these people and their families.

A secondary sense of insecurity develops after deportation due to the precarious conditions and severe risks surrounding the deportee. Unable to belong anywhere, deportees may wander the streets of Tijuana and sleep on the banks of the notorious canal with drug users and other homeless people. The majority of informants express that they were inflicted with permanent emotional wounds as a result of deportation and family separation. The situation of precarity in Tijuana is similar to the experiences of deportees of other countries (Golash-Boza & Navarro, 2018). In line with other studies on stigmatization after deportation (Golash-Boza, 2013), some deportees in Tijuana are stigmatized as a threat and framed as a social failure.

In contrast, following Leinonen and Pellander’s (Leinonen & Pellander, 2020) argument about the possibility of achieving a sense of security, our analysis shows that despite the negative circumstances of deportation and its aftermath, the transitional process may develop into a stable life. For deported parents, the prospect of family reunification, or at least of having regular visits and permanent communication with their children and spouses, represents a possibility of achieving a sense of security and certainty. Some informants even found that deportation had turned their life around in a positive way. These people were, for example, able to find meaningful employment in Tijuana because of the resources they had from living in the United States. The change in their deportability was also significant: in Tijuana, they did not have to endure the constant fear of deportation, which had affected many during their lives in the United States, even during legal stays (Horsti & Pirkkalainen, 2021).

Deportees leave behind spouses, partners, children and other family members who have faced a traumatic family separation, unsettling many communities in the United States (Rubio-Hernandez & Ayón, 2016). For dreamer parents, the harsh consequences of deportation include personal experiences ranging from homelessness and emotional damage to remarkable stories of helping other disadvantaged people and fulfilling professional careers. However, the possibility of transition is not available for every deportee, as their social positions (such as lack of schooling) and social stigmatization may pose serious obstacles. It would be important to develop legislation, social awareness and everyday practices to increase the sense of security for deportees. This would offer the opportunity to feel a sense of dignity and make deportation and family separation more bearable.