Ben: That's, when I was deported, that's the first thing that, that's what came to my mind, The Man with No Country, not here, not there, not accepted here, not accepted over there. And when I got here it's like, no paperwork, no drivers, no identification, and I had a harder time getting a driver's license, getting my voter registration—which is the main source of ID here—the toughest time here then I did getting ID in the United States. And I was illegal in the United States and I was able to, anything I needed, I could get over there. And here, I'm here, I had a hard time. It took me a few months.

Ben: So, there's a lot to the government, part to blame there. Instead of locking them up, they should really create some type of labor program.Anne: People can come and go.Ben: People can come, instead of coming across and, to me, instead of somebody going to work over there and pay $6,000 to a coyote, they could pay $1,500 at a processing center to apply and get placed in a job by the US government legally. But you know what? US government don't wanna do that, because they want to keep them costs down. And so, does private business, they need to keep them costs down. It's like, would you like to pay $30 for a Big Mac? [Laughs].

Anne: What do you think the Mexican government should be doing to better integrate return migrants?Ben: Well, I think that there should be a program where returning migrant…Well, one, there should be at least some type of assistance, get them a bus ticket and some type of cash, to get him back to his place of origin. Job opportunities, some type of government incentive for employers to hire new arrivals.Ben: Some type of, I want to say grants, there should be some type of assistance to help, some type of temporary housing assistance, maybe in monetary assistance or vouchers, something. Not just dumping. One of the things that's causing a lot of crime right along the border is you take 1,000 people a day and dump them, right there on the border and they don't have no food, they don't have nothing. And these gangs come along, they have an endless army supply, they can supply their armies and never run out of people as long as they're dumping people right there. Because you're dumping people there with no money, no food, nowhere to go. There's shelters, but them shelters are full.

Ben: I mean it's a nice house. It's up in the mountains and I had a lot of family members, including my wife go, "Why are you leaving? Why are you going to Mexico City? You don't need to.” I go, "Well one I'm going, I want to be involved in helping these people. I gotta go out and do something, I know I can still do something, I need a job. I need a job, I need a real job.” Raising goats and sheep is fine and it was common people and stuff, but I'm a busy body and I need to do something.Ben: And then I became aware of New Comienzos and when I seen that, that's what I want to do. I want to go down there, I want to be involved in that. I want to be involved in that because that's something that I know I can help and contribute to. And at the same time, I can get me a job down there and I'll stay put. I'll come back and visit every now and then, but I'm a city person [Laughs].

Anne: And when were you detained? How long ago?Ben: It's been about a year and a half ago, yeah.Anne: And you fought it for a year and a half?Ben: No, no, no. No, no. I had gotten, I was in, it was about six months and then I got shipped over to Matamoras and I was at my family's house, my family has a house here on the border.

Anne: So, what happened? What happened to bring you to detention and deportation?Ben: Well, this last issue had to do with labor. I was used to these labor department investigations and this last few really started getting more intense though. I kind of think that it took a stronger turn with the Obama administration, to focus on these contracts and make sure that all the criteria in these prevailing wage jobs were really fulfilled to the T.Anne: So, for the federal contractors?Ben: Yes. And I'm an illegal alien, but you can look me up in the Michigan records. And I'm registered there as a preferred government contractor. I did well over 200,000 units and for Amtrak, which is in a bad area of Detroit, and around other parts of Detroit, Wayne town. But there, Indiana and Ohio, Florida and Mississippi, Texas, I was a preferred government contractor. And did they know I was illegal? Damn right they did.Anne: They did?Ben: I know they did. There's no way that they couldn't have known. Did they care? No. They just needed their job done.Anne: Yeah.Ben: At the end, I think they still didn't care but I think the heat got turned up and they started—Anne: That's all you can think of?

And my children, they didn't know that I was illegal until it happened. And we had…Well there was a reason why we didn't want them knowing because children can tell others. And then also they just wouldn't understand. When they were a little bit older, like my son in junior high and my daughter barely starting high school, do you remember when Lou Dobbs went off on his rant? On CNN, when he started all that. When Lou Dobbs started ranting, it was like every day on TV, the other school children were talking about illegal ladies and this and this. And one day I got home and my wife, the kids were already in bed, and she told me, "You know what? Vanessa came up and asked me if any of our relatives were illegal aliens.” And I told her, "Probably about time we started explaining some things to her.” She goes, "No, with our relatives yes, but as far as you, no. You can't"

I had many brushes with Immigration, as we're in the construction business. Many times, job sites would get raided and the only thing was just to keep cool and walk straight up to them. Don't walk away from them, if I seen them walking this way, I walked towards them instead of walking away from them. I walked towards them.

And so, we left, and we went to Acuña across from Del Rio (Texas) and then, "No, just wait for me across the bridge. I'll be right there.” So, "No, no no.” So, I got a taxicab straight across the bridge. But I had already had my Texas driver's license and social security card brought to me in case they questioned me, then I could say, "US.” And that's all I did, just told them I was a US citizen, they just…It wasn't like it is right now. Right now, even a US citizen is going to have trouble getting across the bridge [Laughs].

Ben: Well, the thing is that I had, when I was 19 I had a brush with the law and I took care of it, but then ICE came looking for me, they didn't pick me up or arrest me, but since they came looking for me, they left their card there. And so, I voluntarily went in, but I knew something happened, so I grabbed my driver's license, my social security card and I tucked it away. So, I go into the offices and immediately they put me on a pretty high, outrageous bond and—Anne: When you were 19?Ben: No, 19 is when I got in trouble. They came back looking for me, I was already what? I think I was 27, going on, 27, 28.Anne: Oh wow.Ben: And so, I go to the immigration office in Dallas and I went in and then there they told me I was under arrest and then they shipped me to Lorado. And I go before a judge in Lorado, and I go to fight this. I'm going to have to sit here two years or pay $50,000 bond. And I go, "No,” so I just told the judge. I had an attorney, we had hired an attorney, but the attorney, I knew he was just wanting to. I probably could've, maybe it was a mistake, we could've won. But I did not want to sit there for two years at a young age, two years and then at the end, maybe nothing.Anne: Yeah.Ben: I didn't want to waste two years. So, they deported me, I asked the judge to sign, and I signed and that same evening I was on the bus to Lorado, caught a bus to Saltillo, , and then this was a day before Thanksgiving, when I arrived in Mexico.

Anne: And you then went to community college. The community college, the courses that you took, were they designed to help you with your business? Did you think about that?Ben: Yes. The courses that I started taking were courses that I figured would help me, not just in my business, but in personal wealth later. For instance, I took business management, small business management, was one of the courses that I focused on. And then the other course was psychology-- definitely something that I knew would help. Then real estate finance because I figured later with accumulating some money I could invest in real estate. Understanding real estate finance was a very very important factor in me being able to grow my business later. I didn't know that at the time, but later I purchased my first home and then we purchased a home up in Indianapolis. And then when I hit a point where I needed to grow, I had the opportunity to take bigger jobs and bigger contracts, I didn't have that much capital to be able to take that much more on.Ben: Well, come these home equity loans, finance pulled money out of the house, take the property, rent it out to somebody to pay that, or lines of credit and then we'd do a job, I'd get the money, pay that loan off, and free that line of credit up later on. But apart from that, I did take all the basic arts classes, English, algebra, I had some calculus and trigonometry. I taught those at our private school, where my kids went to, later as a substitute.

So, when you were in high school, did you feel like just any other American kid?Ben: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yes, I felt normal, I had a lot of friends and our high school, the high school I went to, there was very few Hispanics- period, very few blacks.

When I married Bena, I started a business of my own and it struggled at first, but then I was persistent and everything just, it just changed from one day to another. But it was really rough going at first; it was like working, working and then this money comes in and then it goes all out. And then finally, poof and from there everything changed.

I thought it was too, but I still miss the graduation experience and all that. I missed out on that, but regardless, I kept going and I just went mainly into construction, stayed with drywall and did really well.

And then after dad got better and went back to work, I still stayed working there and then I need to go back to school. I didn't want to go back and start and be behind the class. So, I became aware of the GED program. So, I went and took the GED program, I didn't even study for it, I just went and took it and passed it. And I started taking community college courses before my classmates graduated [Laughing]. Already had a jump on them!

But English I did, I went through elementary, middle school, went to tenth grade in high school, then I dropped out of high school to go help my father. He started a small construction business, but then he got sick and he was hospitalized for three months.

And when I would get home from school when I was going to kindergarten—my brother would get out an hour later—I would get home and my mother would give me these little comic magazines, Mexican comic magazines, and she'd have me read them. And then she would make me write letters to my grandmother. So that's how I was able to learn a little bit of, keep the Spanish and English.

Once you realize that it's not really how you were taught to believe, or not for you in that case, I feel like a lot of kids just give up and lose hope, because it's already hard as it is. Not being able to get a job and still trying to do things right without breaking the law. And then when you realize it's never going to change for you, man, you just like, "Whatever. Okay." Or, "If I can't get it like this, I'm going to get it like that."

I'm like, "Because they're cool, man. They're like... I feel like these are my people. They've gone through the same struggles, a lot of the same stuff that happened to them. They would happen to me."

And it was always a freaking struggle in my head man. Just trying to do the right thing, because I felt like the world owed me all the time I lost.

My boss—damn, that guy has helped me a lot. His name is Richard Perkin. Man, that guy's like a second father to me. He did everything he could to try to help me out and my status, but at that point it was already too late

So you came back to Arizona after two years of being kidnapped? Did someone give you some therapy. I mean did you go through therapy or counseling at this time?Mike: We weren't from there, so we didn't get any of that.

So yeah, I feel like it was around my freshman year, everything started going downhill, because I used to be in events, classes, and all my teachers loved me. I would have conversations like this with my teachers and they'd be amazed sometimes like, "Wow, this kid has so much insight. So much to talk about." And they would always encourage me, but the thing about it is I wouldn't feel like that.Mike: I would always feel like, "I'm not shit. What are they talking about? What do they see in me that I don't see in myself?" And it sucked because other people looked at my potential and I put myself so low that I didn't even look at that.

I just said, "Screw it. Nothing's ever going to happen for me, so why even try?"

One day, you have a family and you're happy, and then the next, you can't even speak the language. You can't communicate, you don't know where you're at. I felt like my whole world was tilted to the side.

I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I don't feel like I have a home. Like a real one. At this point, I think my home is my partner and that scares the shit out of me [Chuckles]

I made the decision of returning, and I uprooted my sisters. My little sister was a year old when we left. She knew nothing about Mexico. She barely spoke Spanish, so I selfishly made everyone move back to Mexico.Anita: Because?Luisa: Because I wanted to continue my education.Anita: Why didn't they stay behind?Luisa: I think my mom felt guilty. I think she didn't want me to be by myself. She felt guilty that she didn't allow me to apply for DACA, so she's like, "Okay. That's okay." Eventually my sisters are going to have to go through this and let's do it now so the change doesn't hurt them as much when it comes down to it.

Right when I had graduated high school was when DACA came out, and my mom said no. She made me feel extremely selfish for wanting it. She let me know that, "You know what? Yes, you're going to get what you want, but you're going to affect all of us." But in my mom's mind and I think in every single Mexican or undocumented person's mind is that distrust of the government. That they're going to have you in this database and they're going to know exactly where you live and who lives with you and where you are. I don't want that, and she did not allow that.

Her sister would call me like, "Hey. Could you tell L___ that she needs to come on this day because we're going to have the family barbecue? You're invited, too, obviously." All family events I was invited to. I was at her cousin's wedding. That's how involved we were. We were best friends.