In many ways, Jose Angel Mireles’ life — which had, until recently, been split in two — is now split in three.
After 18 years living in Arizona, he’s trying to build a new life in Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico after being deported just a few weeks ago. The border city is hundreds of miles from his family elsewhere in Mexico, and on the other side of the border wall from his 11-year-old-daughter in Phoenix.
“It’s like a life between places,” Mireles said from the Kino Border Initiative migrant shelter. “That’s a hard thing.”
The 48-year-old is one of many longtime residents of the United States, and of Arizona, who find themselves adjusting to a new life after deportation. For some people, that means learning to live in a far-away country. But for others, that new life is just on the other side of the border, in Mexican border cities like Nogales.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mireles at a courthouse, he said, after he was served with a fine for driving with stolen plates. The car, he says, belonged to his boss.
Despite no history of violent crime, he spent the next two months in the ICE detention center in Florence. He said it was crowded and dirty, and other detainees were sick. He saw people sleep on the floor without blankets, he said.
Eventually, he and a van full of other deportees were shackled on both their wrists and ankles — ICE’s protocol for deportations — and taken to the border.
“They treated us like animals,” Mireles said. “Their plan is to mentally exhaust us so we don’t come back.”
According to the Deportation Data Project, interior arrests — which can happen far from the border to longtime U.S. residents like Mireles — increased five fold during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The people coming back now are people who very often have spent many years in the United States — even big portions of their lives in the United States,” said Adam Isacson with the Washington Office on Latin America.
Deportation numbers have dipped somewhat in the past few months, as the Department of Homeland Security goes through a change in leadership. Its once-high profile presence in some U.S. cities, like Minneapolis, is also waning.
“They are really giving people with whistles and cellphone cameras a lot less to record lately,” Isacson said.
That doesn’t necessarily mean immigration enforcement will continue to diminish into the future.
More funding for ICE from Republicans’ 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill will keep coming online. That could lead to more enforcement capacity soon, Isacson said. Future increased immigration enforcement could also take shape more subtly, in the form of bureaucratic hurdles.
“This shift is moving toward a lot of small, death-by-a-thousand-cuts, bureaucratic changes to try to get people to just self deport,” Isacson said.
Mireles is staying at the Kino Border Initiative shelter until he’s able to recoup all of his Mexican documents, like his birth certificate and identification card. He’s planning a trip to see his mother, who he hasn’t seen in 18 years, in the city of Torreón, where he was born.
After that, he will come back to Nogales, hundreds of miles away, where he can more easily see his 11-year-old daughter, Sofia Nicole. The current plan is for her mother to bring her to visit every two weeks.
She already visited once. There were tears, but “she’s strong,” Mireles said.
“Honestly, I don’t really like Nogales,” Mireles said. “But since it’s close enough for my daughter to visit, I’m going to stay here.”
Life in Nogales presents difficulties for new arrivals like Mireles, who is grieving his old life in Phoenix where he worked in construction. With that work, he was able to cover expenses and send money back to his family in Mexico.
Now, the hard labor jobs he can find — like pouring concrete — don’t pay as much, even though life this close to the border is still much more expensive than in other parts of Mexico.
“I’m here fighting, facing each new day,” Mireles said.
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Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller overstepped his authority by entering a partnership with federal immigration authorities, a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge ruled Friday. -
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner determined that a Haitian man’s death while in ICE custody was caused by a severe infection related to dental issues. That comes after the man’s family accused immigration agents of failing to provide proper treatment for a toothache. -
The city of Phoenix has launched a multilingual platform where residents can report concerns or incidents related to federal law enforcement activity within the city. The Federal Enforcement Complaint Reporting Portal is available at the Community Transparency Initiative webpage. -
U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego called on his fellow lawmakers to reform the nation’s immigration laws to protect long-time undocumented residents who were brought to the country as children. -
Pinal County leaders say the top local prosecutor having partnered with ICE is weakening his office’s ability to try local cases.
