Deportees walk to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security bus waiting to take them to McCarran International Airport before being brought back to Mexico.
Prior to deportation, Marco Flores is fingerprinted at the Homeland Security building near Pecos and Sunset roads.
Illegal immigrants wait in a holding cell at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security before being deported. About 70 percent of deportees at the facility are Mexican nationals.
Deportee Adolfo Ortiz speaks on March 30 with a visitor at the Homeland Security building in Las Vegas.
Mexican national Arturo Martinez doesn't know when, or if, he'll see his 3-year-old twin sons again.
"You make one mistake and that's it," the 31-year-old said tearfully one March morning while sitting in a cold holding room at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security near Pecos and Sunset roads. "My kids were born here. But if I come back again I'll get in trouble."
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Martinez, who just completed a 16-month sentence at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs on drug-related charges, was about to be deported, or, as U.S. immigrants and customs enforcement officers refer to it, "removed." He was to be placed on a flight later that day to the Mexican border, with nothing but a small suitcase in tow, and dropped off to an uncertain future.
Meanwhile, Martinez's mother, a permanent U.S. resident, would care for his two sons in Las Vegas.
Martinez was one of more than 20 local illegal immigrants being deported that day. He had been living illegally in Las Vegas for eight years.
"I came (to the United States) with a tourist visa. It expired," he said. "I came here for a better way of life."
It's an all-too-familiar story to Frank Galvan, the officer-in-charge of Las Vegas' detention and removal operations for the immigration agency. Galvan oversees the daily "removal" of about two dozen illegal immigrants. He describes the process with the matter-of-fact nonchalance of someone who has been working in immigration services for nearly two decades.
Deportees "come from local detention facilities," the Texas native said during an interview in his office, just feet from where that morning's deportees were being held. "They are brought here early in the morning to prepare. We give them the opportunity to make phone calls so people can bring them money and valuables."
For security reasons, the deportees are not told in advance the day of their departure. They are given a few minutes to say goodbye to family members and are allowed to bring a single bag of personal belongings. They can't take more than $10,000 in cash with them.
Illegal immigrants who come to Las Vegas to gamble and find themselves in trouble with the law and about to be deported are allowed to take any gambling winnings with them so long as those winnings total less than the $10,000 cap.
"You'd be surprised how many go back with large amounts of money," Galvan said.
He estimated that about 70 percent of the deportees are Mexican nationals who can be delivered to the California-Mexico or Arizona-Mexico border on one of several special "Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System" flights each week. The rest of the deportees are classified by officers as "OTM" or "Other Than Mexican." For them, Galvan's office usually arranges commercial flights. Depending on the situation, an officer may accompany them on the flights.
A majority of the deportees are men, because more men than women end up getting arrested and thus are more likely to be discovered to be in the country illegally, Galvan said.
Each deportee has his or her own story.
"There's a large spectrum," Galvan said. "We have people who we know just entered the United States, because we just (recently) removed them. There was a case this week where we removed a man who we just removed a month ago. Others have been here years."
Mexican national Gabriel Ruiz, for example, had been living in the United States since he was 3 years old. Now 31, he was waiting with Martinez's group to be deported.
Ruiz was brought by an aunt to the United States. When asked whether he had a counterfeit birth certificate, he answered: "It was real. It just wasn't mine."
A husband and the father of two young children who live in St. George, Utah, Ruiz, like Martinez, recently had completed a prison term for drug charges. He said he wasn't sure exactly what he would do in Mexico but might join his father who owns cattle near Guadalajara.
"It's a poor lifestyle," he said.
Galvan said that most deportees are lucky enough to have family in both Mexico and the United States.
Martinez has a brother in Cancun and said he's going to try to build a new life there. But he admits he's thinking about eventually returning to the United States.
"I hope someday I can get something worked out," he said. "Mexico and the U.S. are supposed to be partners. Maybe in the future I can get a pardon."
That's not likely, said Steve Uziak, resident agent-in-charge for the immigration agency's office of investigation.
"If they (illegal immigrants) are convicted of certain crimes, like selling drugs, and are removed from the country, they are forever barred" from re-entering, he said. "I've seen cases where they have a spouse who is a U.S. citizen, or children who are, and because of the way the laws are they (the immigrants) are barred from being allowed to stay."
The only way immigrants like Martinez could re-enter would be to do so illegally. And many do, Uziak said.
"We remove somebody today and it happens that we find them two or three days down the road in (a U.S.) jail again."
But Martinez and Ruiz probably could have stayed in the United Stated indefinitely if they hadn't gotten into trouble, assuming Congress doesn't authorize a major crackdown on illegal immigrants.
That's because U.S. immigration officials simply don't have time to worry about rounding up an estimated 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants, many of whom are otherwise law-abiding.
"There's a whole litany of things we're responsible for," Uziak said, "from terrorism investigations to human smuggling and trafficking, drug smuggling, money laundering. We only have so many enforcement personnel and we have priorities from our Washington headquarters. We have to do a balancing act."
Both Martinez and Ruiz said they can see both sides of an ongoing congressional debate over immigration reform.
"I think it will be good if they give them (illegal immigrants) work visas," Martinez said. "Maybe they can get better jobs."
Ruiz said he understands the anti-immigration movement.
"A lot about it makes sense," he said. "The not paying taxes, the medical expenses. I understand why people wouldn't want us here, even though I was raised here."
Galvan, the immigration services veteran, said the immigration issue has become very politically important several times during his career.
"It's one of those issues that comes up, settles down and then comes up again," he said. "I don't think there's one clear solution."
Until there is a solution, Galvan said, he will work to make the deportation process as smooth as possible.
"It's a very difficult process and not as individual as we'd like," he said. "We are not usually seen as the good guys, but we try to be fair."
