The other day, I met a kid who was deported to Tijuana from Long Beach.
I’ll call him Carlos, 21.
When he was three, Carlos’s mother took him from their town in Zacatecas, Mexico. They crossed the border illegally and settled in Long Beach, where Carlos grew up and graduated from Lakewood High School.
He studied fashion design at Long Beach City College and got a job in the shipping department of American Apparel in L.A.
Then one night Long Beach police stopped a car he was in and found the driver had some drugs and took everyone in the car into custody. They put an immigration hold on Carlos and a while later he was sent back to Mexico.
