Tijuana, Mexico — Just three miles across the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego, deportees in Tijuana are starting a new life. Among them is Juan Carlos, an immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the U.S. for 19 years. On June 24, his construction crew stopped at a Home Depot in the City of Industry, California — near Los Angeles — to pick up supplies when he was cornered by federal immigration agents.
“As soon as I saw them, I tried to run,” said Juan Carlos, who lived in the U.S. for 19 years. and whose arrest was captured on cell phone video.
He says he spent two weeks in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention before agreeing to sign deportation paperwork.
“Los Angeles gave me many things,” Juan Carlos told CBS News. “It gave me opportunities. It gave me another kind of life…I felt like I was home. But everything happens for a reason.”
Video of Juan Carlos’ arrest was recorded and posted online by a young woman named Audree. She told CBS News she was shocked by the incident, but hoped posting the video would help his family.
“What really got to me was I’m sure they had a gut feeling, maybe not to go out that day, but they needed the money,” she said.
CBS News has spoken to several undocumented immigrants who were arrested by ICE agents, and then after being deported, ended up in a country that they are now unfamiliar with.
In January, the Mexican government announced they had set up shelters along the border with the U.S. preparing for a massive wave of deportees. One of the facilities, Flamingo’s, used to be an event space. Pricila Rivas is a binational deportee coordinator for Al Otro Lado, the only nonprofit allowed into the Flamingo’s facility.
Rivas says the facility has a capacity of 3,000, but has only held about 100 people at a time.
“It’s like a processing station where folks are able to obtain a copy of their birth certificate and basic identity documents,” Rivas explained.
Rivas helps the newly-deported integrate into their new life in Mexico — offering guidance on applying for work, finding shelter, and getting in touch with loved ones.
But she says not all deportees are being sent to sites where there are resources.
“There’s flights going to Tapachula, to the southern border of Mexico,” Rivas said. “So I mean, what happens to the folks that are being deported to other places.”
Even as ICE agents get more aggressive with their tactics, the mass deportations President Trump promised haven’t fully materialized.
According to numbers obtained by CBS News this week, ICE is on track to record more than 300,000 removals in President Trump’s first year back in office, which would be the highest tally since the Obama administration. However, that number is still well below the one million annual deportations which the Trump administration has targeted. The Department of Homeland Security has tracked over 13,000 self-deportations since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term.
One of those who chose to self-deport is Uliser, an immigrant from Cuba. At the age of 15, he fatally shot someone and spent the next 19 years in a U.S. prison before being released in 2024. He was issued a deportation order shortly after, and had been attending immigration check-ins regularly. But as immigration enforcement ramped up in the U.S., he worried he might be detained. And since Cuba is not accepting deportees, there was a risk he’d be sent elsewhere.
“It was a high risk of me, of the United States sending me to Salvador or South Sudan,” he says, ” it was an easy choice… letting them send me to a country where I had, no, I didn’t have the choice to go to or just deciding, coming over here to Mexico where I’m gonna have better opportunities in life.”
Of the estimated 100,000 people who were deported between Jan. 1 and June 24 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 70,583 were convicted criminals, according to an ICE document obtained by CBS News earlier this month. However, the data also shows that most of the documented infractions were traffic or immigration offenses. Less than 1% had murder convictions, the documents showed.
Uliser says he feels remorse when stories like to admonish immigrants.
“When I was in prison, I did a lot of reflection,” Uliser told CBS News. “They use that excuse just to target the folks that are actually working and trying to have a better life.”
Uliser was able to train for a new career as a sales development representative in the months since his release. And he’s hoping to be a support system for others starting over in Mexico.
“There’s a lot of people that are coming,” he added. “They’re going to be coming out from prison, even deported here to Mexico. And if I can be of help in any way I can, I’m going to continue to do the same thing in honor of my victim and his family.”
Others who were deported told CBS News they would like to come back to the U.S., but with tight restrictions, they worry the only way across the border would be illegal and costly.
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