Report: Under Trump, more deportees in Nogales, Sonora, were longtime U.S. residents

A new survey of recent deportees in Nogales, Sonora found many are people who had been living in the United States for 10 or more years.

The Kino Border Initiative, a nonprofit that works with migrants, surveyed 278 recently deported people in Nogales between May and July of this year. They found that 44% of people deported from the U.S. had lived there for a decade or more.

“Deportations at this moment are deportations of community members,” said Joanna Williams, executive director of the Kino Border Initiative.

Their survey also found that the proportion of deportees coming from inside the United States, rather than who were deported while attempting to cross the border, was much higher than in previous years. KBI found that more than 57% of respondents were deported from inside the United States. Last year, that was only 5% of the population of deportees the nonprofit served.

More than half of respondents who had been living in the United States when they were deported had been separated from family, the survey found.

Very few respondents said they spent fewer than 10 days in detention prior to being deported — even though 42% were detained while crossing the border, arrests which tend to result in quicker deportations. That’s likely due to an increase in criminal prosecutions for people attempting to cross, Williams said.

Deportees are also coming to Nogales, Sonora, from further afield than in years past, Williams said. The majority were from Arizona, but many came from detention centers in other states.

“We had people deported from Florida, from Washington, from Texas,” Williams said. “People are being flown all around the country in order to make it to Nogales.”

For this report, KBI surveyed deportees at a new Mexican government center in Nogales, part of the country’s Mexico te Abraza program, which seeks to help people get back to their states of origin.

Mexico started the program after President Donald Trump took office in January to prepare for the mass deportations he promised. The program set up reception centers for recent deportees in Mexican cities across the border. It also helps connect deportees with basic services and pays for bus transportation back to their states of origin.