AMERICA/UNITED STATES - MISSION AND EMIGRATION - “The suitcase with string”: Mexicans abandoned as far as 600km away from their villages. And Mexican women! Deported at the age of 17. The most vulnerable, in places where there is no one to help them.

Nogales Arizona (Agenzia Fides) – We are in Nogales Arizona, a city which borders on Nogales Sonora, another city in Mexico. Hundreds of migrants deported from the United States back to Mexico pass through here every day. “Immigration is a sensitive issue” says Armando Borja, Director for Programs Jesuit Refugee Service USA. “I work with the Jesuit Refugee Service, an international organisation based in Rome. We collect information and documentation concerning violation of human rights in the hope that laws may change. We see Mexicans abandoned as far as 600 km away from their villages. And Mexican women! Deported at the age of 17. The most vulnerable in places where there is no one to help them. We work with two local Catholic Bishops one on each side of the border to seek to resolve the problem. Nogales is a place of transit for people being deported back to Mexico and there is little or nothing to help them. We are talking about 300-400 every day. Some are dumped here in the middle of the night, think of the women and the children: they have no where to go. They wander around for hours until one of the migrant centres opens or they manage to contact the family ”. (Luca De Mata) (showing soon: television programme “La valigia con lo spago”: 4 episodes of an enquiry on migratory flows and new forms of slavery: Rai Uno from 29 June, second evening programme). (Agenzia Fides 22/6/2009; righe 15, parole 233)