“I Don't Want to Be Here.” returning from the U.S. to Mexico and emotional distress: A qualitative study

Abstract

The psychosocial impact on people who were deported to Mexico from the United States or were forcibly returned tends to be greater than on those who return voluntarily. This text examines the way the emotional discomfort experienced by a group of Mexicans who were returned in these ways is constructed, through the analysis of anthropological interviews conducted with five women and thirteen men in which the following phases were explored: pre-migration, stay in the United States, return and reinsertion. This discomfort began in the pre-migration stage, during which they experienced various forms of disempowerment caused by the socioeconomic conditions of Mexico that determine the migratory trajectory, including reintegration. If, despite the disadvantages accumulated during the pre-migration phase, migrants manage to partly reverse their material and psychosocial disempowerment during their stay in the United States, on their return to a context such as Mexico, both their disempowerment and emotional discomfort are exacerbated. We therefore consider that the harm associated with the migratory saga will continue for an indefinite number of years following a person's return to Mexico and must be treated as a social rather than a clinical problem.

1. Introduction

Studies of return migration to Mexico and Central America have taken an increasing interest in deportation and forced return.1 Immigration policy has become tougher, especially in the United States, causing fluctuations in the number of people returning, as well as changes in the profiles and characteristics of migratory cycles (Masferrer and Roberts, 2012; Durand, 2013; Alarcón, 2016; Drotbohm and Hasselberg, 2018; Canales and Meza, 2018; Jacobo and Alaminos, 2018; Serrano and Jiménez, 2019; Caldwell, 2019; Organización Internacional de Migración OIM, 2019). In 2021, Mexico ranked third worldwide, behind India and China, as regards the number of migrants (Secretaría General del Consejo Nacional de Población (SGCONAPO) y Fundación BBVA Bancomer, 2021). According to the National Migration Institute, between 2007 and January 2020, over four and a half million Mexicans were deported from the United States (Martínez-Montoya, 2022). It has been observed worldwide that deportation and forced return lead to a problematic process of reincorporation, with tensions in labor markets, local health and education resources, national reincorporation policies, and family and community life (Ruben et al., 2009; Menjívar et al., 2016; Golash-Boza and Ceciliano, 2018; Gandini and Aranzales, 2019; Kleist, 2020). The effects on the psychological well-being of people who are forced to return also tend to be greater than on that of those who return voluntarily, combining the cumulative effects of the stages of migration (premigration, the migratory journey, residence in another country) with the circumstances of the return, ranging from coercion to being held in detention centers (Zimmerman et al., 2011; Fernández-Niño et al., 2014; Bojorquez et al., 2015; Rosales-Martínez et al., 2017; Ruben et al., 2009).

1.1. Forced return and deportation

Clearly, both forced return and deportation present migrants with significant challenges, interrupting their plans, in many cases breaking up families, preventing them from sending remittances or other family support, and depleting their economic resources. Often, the living conditions they return to are worse than before they migrated (Palacios et al., 2015; Martínez-Buján, 2016; Kleist, 2020; Herrera and Moncayo, 2019). In addition, there are two underlying issues that should be kept in mind, especially regarding their psychosocial well-being. First, a significant number of those who have been forcibly returned had no intention of ever returning, because they have children who were born in the United States, married US citizens, had a good job or a successful business, had achieved a certain degree of economic stability, or believed that their place of origin continued to be unsafe or unstable (De Haas, 2005; Moran-Taylor and Menjívar, 2005; Nekby, 2006; Jensen and Pedersen, 2007; Haug, 2008). Second, the decisions they make during their return are not the result of free, informed choices (Dimitrijevic et al., 2004; Durand, 2004; Jardón-Hernández and Hernández-Lara, 2019).

It is also important to consider that forced return and deportation affect migrants to varying degrees depending on their gender, their stage in the life cycle, the social capital they have acquired, the transnational networks they have constructed, the context to which they return, and, in particular, their lifestyle prior to migrating (Cassarino, 2004; Schramm, 2011; Rivera, 2013; Nicolás, 2019; Woo, 2019). It appears that for migrants returning under these conditions, the premigration phase plays a significant role in their reincorporation into their former social and working lives, even more so than residence in their destination country. Those who had worse economic, educational, and family conditions before migrating have worse conditions when they return than those who began life in more favorable circumstances (Boyd and Grieco, 2002; Ruben et al., 2009; Tobar, 2016; Herrera and Moncayo, 2019; Nicolás, 2019). For those with lower socioeconomic status, involuntary return not only involves a significant loss of control over their own lives but can also be understood as the continuation of a process of vulnerabilities beginning with the initial stages of the migratory project. These can be understood as a multiplicity of expulsions (from education and health care to the labor market) to which they have been subjected (Khosravi, 2018). Sayad (2010) expresses this point clearly when he describes how the majority of migrants return more to a social space than to a physical one, home to a complex of adverse situations from which they had sought to distance themselves by emigrating. Below we highlight the principal characteristics of this social space in Mexico.

1.2. Mexico as a setting for return and reincorporation: inequity and emotional distress

Mexicans who return to their country often face unemployment or poorly paid jobs, drug-related violence, high levels of insecurity, and family violence, driven, in many cases, by the traditional patriarchal order (Breilh, 1999; Ordaz Díaz and Li Ng, 2016; Gandini and Aranzales, 2019). Particularly after the pandemic, it was observed that economic conditions had worsened since poverty increased in 2020. Whereas in 2018, 41.9% of the population was reported to be living in poverty, by 2020, this percentage had risen to 43.9%, equivalent to 55.7 million people (Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social, 2021). The context of precarity is the result of the prevailing inequity in the systems of economic and social reproduction in Mexico and other Latin American countries, which determines the structural conditions for reincorporation (Breilh, 1999, 2010; Rivera, 2013). One characteristic of inequitable systems is that they consistently generate three forms of disempowerment or loss of agency. Agency, or empowerment, has been described as the control a person can have over their own life, and loss of this control is referred to as disempowerment or loss of agency (Breilh, 1999, 2010; Marmot, 2016). There are three forms of disempowerment: material, political, and psychosocial, all of which lead to discontent and suffering (Breilh, 2010; Wilkinson, 2013; Marmot, 2016). With respect to psychosocial disempowerment, the perception of oneself as poor, discriminated against, or unfairly treated has been found to cause stress and increase susceptibility to a variety of illnesses, disorders, and ailments (Álvarez, 2009; Marmot, 2016). Disempowerment and the attendant suffering are unequally distributed among members of society. Depending on circumstances, some people may experience them more frequently, for longer periods of time, or with greater intensity over the course of their lives (Marmot, 2016).

A wide-ranging, conceptual review of the relationship between social suffering and return migration can be found in Parella et al. (2019). There are also studies of Mexico and other parts of Latin America with microsocial and phenomenological perspectives that have explored disempowerment, social suffering, and the psychosocial repercussions caused by return migration and the process of reincorporation. Among the issues analyzed are the emotional overload of people who are deported, which creates feelings of fragility, anxiety, and irritability (Tobar, 2016). They experience a sense of failure, impotence, frustration, and hopelessness at having to start over again, and these feelings constitute a kind of mourning over the cancelation of the individual and family project (Quino, 2016; López et al., 2020). Various authors have also described the conflicts experienced by forced returnees over the contradictions of the American Dream: although they long for the health care, education, and nutrition it offers, they also know that it involves indebtedness and the loss of freedom. These authors have also found that life in the United States and the return to their countries have different meanings for men and women (Woo, 2019; Martínez, 2019; Nicolás, 2019).

To describe the mood processes that accompany social suffering, we use the concept of “emotional distress.” This notion combines the key arguments of Kleinman (1997, 2010) and Burin 91996, 2012). From Kleinman (1997) we take the idea that all suffering—such as the lived experiences of deprivation, poverty, pain, loss, or loneliness—is the result of social processes related to economic factors, political circumstances, social relations, and cultural conventions (Kleinman, 1997, 2010). These contexts not only influence the presence and severity of distress, but also shape the responses of individuals and groups. We believe that Burin (1996, 2012) is correct in identifying gender as a crucial modulating factor in the subjective construction of suffering, given that society establishes different expectations for men and women. Gender determines the prestige a person gains or loses by migrating, working outside the domestic sphere, or providing the family with care or money. Women's decision to migrate, to remain in the destination country, or to return is subordinated to their partner's, and their role as the family's major caregiver (Woo, 2019). We therefore understand emotional distress as the subjective construction of moods caused by the tensions between individual agency and any social institution, be it the family or governmental authority, which are also affected by their age, gender, nationality, and other characteristics in the social context.

This article seeks to shed light on the origin of the emotional discomfort experienced by a group of Mexican migrants who returned from the United States because they were deported or forcibly returned or voluntarily returned from the United States. In order to achieve the research goal, information was collected on the pre-migration phases, stay in the US and return and reinsertion into Mexico.

2. Materials and methods

The information we present is drawn from descriptive exploratory research using qualitative methodology. The study was designed to explore and understand the origin of the emotional discomfort of a group of people who emigrated to the United States and returned to Mexico, based on the understanding they expressed of their experiences, emotions and values. It was conducted from November 2018 to February 2020, and involved anthropological interviews to gather discursive evidence.

2.1. Setting and subjects

Subjects were contacted in four different scenarios. Two were health institutions called UNEMES CAPA, located in the states of Morelos and Hidalgo, where staff had reported that they attended returned Mexicans. The others were two nonprofits based in Mexico City. These organizations offer support to returned Mexicans in matters such as accommodation, accompaniment, psychological support, and assistance in requesting identity documents and job-seeking.

Intentional sampling was undertaken to select the ten participants who, because of their experiences, fit the purpose of the research. It should be noted that it was possible to determine the characteristics we sought in subjects in advance as a result of the review conducted of published theoretical and empirical works, mentioned in the introduction (Martínez, 2018). We chose this type of sampling to be able to explore the phenomenon in depth, obtain detailed accounts of episodes of interest for the study (each migratory stage, the associated emotions, and perceptions about both) and analyze them thoroughly as recommended by the literature (Sandelowski, 1995; Creswell and Poth, 1998).

When this sampling is used, the richness of the discursive material contributed by each subject to saturate the main categories of the study is more important than the number of cases, which means that in subsequent interviews, the information that has already been obtained from previous respondents is repeated (Bertaux, 1993; Flick, 2018; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). This procedure is known as data saturation, and as some authors point out, it does not imply the exhaustion of an object of study or empirical reality, but rather the fact that new units of analysis do not enable one to make novel assertions or ones that are relevant to the topic being addressed (Mayan, 2009; Denzin, 2010; Suárez and Arenas 2013).

The inclusion criteria for subjects were: being of legal age and having returned to Mexico as a result of deportation (removal), forced or voluntary return. The exclusion criterion was being under the age of eighteen. We interviewed a total of eighteen expatriated Mexicans: five women and thirteen men. The sociodemographic data of the subjects and certain aspects of the number of trips to the United States, their length of stay and whether they were in a detention center can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sociodemographic data of subjects.

Pseudonym	Age	Education	Religion	Marital Status	Children	State of Residence	Current Activity	No. of Times Migrated	Year of Migration; Duration of Residence in U.S.; Duration of Residence in Mexico	Type of Return
Ana	41	Junior high school	Believer	Married in the U.S.	Two born in the U.S.	Hidalgo	Homemaker	Two	1994 (first), three years 2000 (second), thirteen years Six years in Mexico	Forced return: husband had to return to Mexico and did not allow her to remain with her daughters in the U.S.
Esperanza	27	Bachelor's degree	Catholic	Single	None	Mexico City	Works with an NGO	One	1999, ten years Ten years in Mexico	Forced return: tried to regularize her status in the U.S. from Mexico to attend a university in the U.S.
Maricela	42	Junior high school	Catholic-Fundamentalist Christian	Single	Three born in the U.S., One Mexican	Mexico City	Works as a cleaner and makes handicrafts	ONe	1999, 18 years Two years in Mexico	Deportation: was in jail and a detention center.
Beatriz	36	High school	None	Married	Two born in the U.S.	Mexico City	Collaborates with an immigrant organization and sells handicrafts	Several times	every summer since 1989, different durations One year in Mexico	Forced return: turned over to the immigration department by her husband.
Elena	56	Junior High School	Fundamentalist Christian	Married	Three born in Mexico, one died	Morelos	House cleaner	Two	1990, one year 1997, one and a half years Twenty-three years in Mexico	Volunteer
Damián	37	Elementary school	Catholic and Believer in Santa Muerte	Married	Three Mexican, with a Mexican partner	Hidalgo	Construction worker	Over ten	1999 (first) six years 2006 (second), back and forth 2011 (last) eleven years Two years in Mexico	Deported: was in a detention center.
Darío	38	Incomplete elementary school	None	Married	One born in the U.S.	Mexico City	Owns silk screen business	One	1999 seventeen years, Three years in Mexico	Deported: was in jail and a detention center.
Jorge	35	Junior high school	Believer in God and Santa Muerte	Married	One Mexican Two born in the U.S. One with partner	Morelos	Telephone company employee	Two	2000 (first), seven years 2007 (second), ten years Two years in Mexico	Deported twice: was in jail and in a detention center.
Jonás	37	High school	Christian	Married	One child of his own Two with partner, both in the U.S.	Mexico City	Tourist guide, English teacher, shopkeeper	One	2001, seventeen years Eighteen months in Mexico	Deported
Mariano	43	Elementary school	Catholic	Married	Two Mexican One born in the U.S. Five with partner	Hidalgo	N/d	Four	1991 (first), six months 1992 (second), six months 1994 (third) year unknown (fourth), fourteen years Nine years in Mexico	Forced return: separated from his wife; had been deported once before.
Gustavo	45	Incomplete high school	None	Single	None	Mexico City	Works with an NGO	One	2004–05, approximately 14 years 1 year in Mexico	Deported: was in a detention center.
Martín	43	Junior High School	N/d	Common-law marriage	Three born in the US	Morelos	Carpenter	Several times	1991, seventeen years Eleven years in Mexico	Deported, was in jail
Isaac	40	Junior High School	N/d	Single	Two born in the US	Mexico City	English teacher working at a Call Center	One	1984, thirty years (his parents took him) Six years in Mexico	Deported was in jail
Rodrigo	51	High school	Catholic	Common-law marriage	Yes, but we don't know how many	Morelos	Farmworker	Eight	2002 (first), six years From 2008 to 2013 he traveled six times 2014, six years Six months in Mexico	Volunteer
Gonzalo	57	High school	Catholic	Single	Two born in Mexico	Morelos	Small business employee	Two	1998, nine months 2004, fourteen years Two years in Mexico	Volunteer
Isaías	45	High school	Catholic	Married	Four born in Mexico	Hidalgo	Electrician	Two	1992, one year 1994, eight years Seventeen years in Mexico	Volunteer
Armando	50	High school	Catholic	Common-law marriage	Three born in Mexico	Morelos	Freelance landscaping and house repairs	Three	1990, two years 2007, eleven months 2011, one year Eight years in Mexico	Volunteer
Fernando	22	Junior High	Catholic	Single	0	Hidalgo	Self-employed, car shop	Four	Since the age of eight, he has been back once a year for six months	Volunteer

Source: Compiled by the author, based on interviews.

2.2. Procedure

First, the potential organizations, groups and institutions that conduct any type of activity with migrants were identified. The research team established contact with the people responsible for these places on the basis of their availability and the type of activity they undertake. Team members included one person with a master's degree in public mental health, a doctor in psychology, a doctor in anthropology, and a psychology graduate. The personnel at the health institutions (physicians, psychologists, administrators) and volunteers in charge of the organizations were informed of the objectives of the research and given the protocol, and their voluntary collaboration was requested. The personnel and administrators of the institutions and organizations showed interest and support for the study, for which a verbal agreement was established. As a way of repaying their willingness to discuss the project and collaborate with us on it, we offered to provide them with printed information on mental health topics (directories, information on alcoholism, guides to services, and similar materials). After repeated meetings, through which we made sure we knew how the institutions and organizations functioned and what kind of support they provided for migrants, the administrators put us in contact with migrants.

Once we had been introduced to potential subjects (in the first face-to-face or telephone appointment), a member of the research team requested their voluntary collaboration, informing them of the objectives of the study and benefits of participating, the duration of the interview, the data protection procedures and the fact that the interview would be audio-recorded. When the person accepted and attended the first appointment at the facilities of the institutions or organizations, they were provided with the printed informed consent, which contained the aforementioned information, and told that they were free to withdraw their consent at any time and to drop out of the study, which would not affect their relationship with the organization or group, or if applicable, access to health center services. The procedures to be followed to protect data confidentiality were also described, and authorization requested to record the interviews and disseminate and publish results. Subjects were reminded that the information they provided would be analyzed with that of other people and that general conclusions on the issue would be obtained. The interview began once the document had been signed.

Most of the people agreed to participate, and a day, place and time were arranged to conduct the interviews at a time that suited them. We ensured that there were spaces that allowed for confidentiality and comfort, such as offices lent to us at the health centers, meeting rooms in organizations, and empty booths in restaurants. Those who did not wish to participate said that they did not have enough time due to their double work shifts or that they would soon be moving to another city.

2.3. Instrument

We conducted anthropological interviews,2 with open questions beginning with “Tell me how...” and “Can you talk about...?” that explored emotional experiences throughout the migratory trajectory, asking about their duration, intensity, associated ideas, and impact on daily life. The interview guide included the following key topics: (a) life context throughout the migratory trajectory (premigration, preparation, travel, arrival, residence, and return; (b) health/illness, emotional distress/stressful conditions, and their relationship with the use of services at every stage of the migratory trajectory; and (c) sociodemographic data. Interviews lasted between ninety minutes and four hours, in one or two sessions. All of them were recorded, transcribed, and stored in digital files.

2.4. Interview analysis

The analysis involved various levels of interpretation (Guber et al., 2014). In the first level, specific content was collected that responded to the interview guide topics, which constituted the two main categories of the study: the migratory trajectory and health-disease, which focuses mainly on emotional discomfort. Certain subcategories were also identified for each of the categories. For example, for the migratory trajectory, three stages were established: pre-immigration, stay and expulsion from the United States, and return-reintegration into Mexico. For the health-disease category, the subcategories were the causes of emotional discomfort in each of the three stages. For example, in the pre-immigration stage, these were poverty and domestic violence; and in removal and return, removal proceedings, and the impossibility of continuing to live in the United States.

The second interpretation, based on theoretical structuring, identified connections between the topics that were important to the interviewee, such as the role of the provider in the family before, during, and after migration, and the impact of economic precarity across the migratory stages. The third interpretation compared the material with that generated by other researchers, or by the same research in other interviews. Finally, the episodes of emotional distress experienced by the subjects were condensed into a table divided into three time periods: before migration, during residence in the U.S., and the return to and reincorporation into Mexico (see Tables 2 and 3).

Table 2.

Interview excerpts: pre-migration, residence in U.S., and return to Mexico.

Pseudonym	Stage	Interview Excerpt
Martin	Pre-migration	… When I was small, I was raised my mother and [she] preferred my stepfather, and my stepfather, well, he never liked me. One day, when he was drunk, he said, “You're leaving home” and of course, I looked at [my mom] and she said, “your dad doesn't want you here, you're going to leave,” andso, at the age of 8 he threw me out of the street…
Mariano	Pre-migration	I left junior high school in eighth grade to help my parents financially in the town where I lived. We were from Mexico City; we went to Michoacán. And that's where I met my wife.
Esperanza	Pre-migration	… and we went [to the U.S.] because of, um…financial problems, and my father had an alcohol problem. He was a hand truck worker in the Merced market and decided to go, to earn more money, I don't know. [My dad] had his mom, his three sisters, his brother, his whole family, his aunt and uncle, his cousins, everyone was there [in the U.S.], and my mom was alone. . . . And his immediate family never treated my mom very well either, you know?
Gonzalo	Pre-migration	My reasons, really, were because of my finances, because of my family, my wife and two children I had at that time. We needed to get ahead. I was stuck, work was very slow. I used to fit window glasses in people's homes.
Damián	Residence in U.S.	I would say that it's good to look at the U.S. just because there's work, you can progress, and send money back here. Everything there is the good life, yes, not including drugs or alcohol. For example, you go out on Sunday, you get up, you fill the cooler with food, you check your car. It's a very good life, there are good cars, you know? You treat all your friends, your family, and I had a big family. “Here's something for gas.” “No, it's my treat, let's go.” I feel like it's a good life.
Darío	Residence in U.S.	…later, after a few months, I was working and was able to buy myself a car and rent my own apartment…and it was something I could never have done here in such a short time. And in the U.S. I didn't have to—they always asked on the applications how many years of school I had, but I didn't put anything down, and the truth is, it wasn't important. What was important were the jobs I had, but at the same time they weren't, because sometimes when you don't have any experience they still give you an opportunity.... That's something cool there that I like, that they give us all an opportunity.
Jonás	Residence in U.S.	…there I saved, I began to build up my credit, my credit there, I bought cars at the dealer with zero miles.... I bought myself a car, yes, a car, a car, and a van, and I start to pay them off, and later I bought a house with my wife, with the woman who is now my wife.... I bought mobile homes, I bought three that really… We bought three, I would do it up then rent it out.
Isaac	Residence in U.S.	Fortunately, I was doing really well, I didn't have to worry about money. It got to the point where we'd be watching a home game of the Mexico team. And they'd say, “Mexico is going to play in Chicago against the United States team on that day” and there's your mom, your dad, your daughters, everyone, and you say, you know what? get fourteen tickets right now, here's my card. Or when you go to the beach, you don't have to worry. Right now [in Mexico] they say, “We should go to the beach”, and you have to save [money for] a month, you know?
Ana	Residence in U.S.	So it got very complicated to live there, because there is a lot, there is also a lot of racism there. I experienced that a lot at my job, a lot of racism, and that hurts, and in addition we were always very careful so they wouldn't deport us, we tried to be careful. If we knew they were stopping people in a certain place, we tried not to go there, we took another route.
Elena	Return to Mexico	… I always missed my children. I thought, “If I spend years here [in San Diego] I'm going to make money but when I go back, I'm going to be a stranger to my children, there's going to be no respect anymore. Family was more important to me than money, so I went back to Mexico. Here it has been difficult for me because now I clean houses and I don't have much [money], but I am with my children.
Maricela	Return to Mexico	I was driving and didn't have my lights on. I had just left the parking lot when the police stopped me. They asked me for my driver's license, and I showed them my [Mexican] voter's ID and my ID from the consulate... They said they would going to take me to the jail because they wanted to check wheter I was really the person of the ID... They took me to the jail... [I was there] three days, but then they had an immigration judge for me, and from then on that is how they sent me to a detention center. I was nearly six months.
Ana	Return to Mexico	…and one day they called to say that my husband's father had died.... And my husband had to come back. I told him I wanted to stay with my daughters, that he should come back and arrange things, because I knew it wasn't easy, that if one day I wanted to return [to the U.S.], I wasn't going to be able to, at my age I wouldn't be able to do it. It's not that I couldn't do it, it's that I might have died along the way, and what about them? I wasn't thinking of myself, I was thinking about my daughters. And I said to him, “I'll stay, and you go do what you have to do and leave me with the girls.” He didn't want to, he said “No, what do you mean you're going to stay? Let's go, the four of us,” and so I had to come back.

Source: Compiled by the authors based on interviews.

Table 3.

Emotional distress associated with return and reincorporation in Mexico.

Pseudonym	Description of Emotional Distress (Excerpt).
Gonzalo	…It is difficult for me because as part of the help that going to the United States gave me, it gave me the opportunity to build my home, but I also have enormous problems, because well, I got very sick from depression and anxiety. I got depressed when I came back, because I realized how much it had damaged the relationship between me and my son.
Armando	When I went to Chicago, my wife changed everything to her name, and her brothers’, everything, and when I came back [to Mexico], I no longer had anything. And I had a lot of very serious problems, so serious that I gave up, and out of the one million one hundred thousand pesos I had saved, she only gave me three hundred thousand pesos and nothing more. The apartment, the trucks, the business, everything was lost… and that was what I got from going to the United States.
Ana	When I got here [Mexico] I realized the situation was very difficult, unimaginable. I cried I think for a motnh because I didn't feel comfortable here, I mean, it's a very drastic change for me.. so I said to him, I think I spent a year making tortillas to try at least not to spend so much of our savings, because I wanted, I always dreamed of having my own house... But I realized that I couldn't even affrod -I think working a whole day [just cover] milk and bread.
Esperanza	Then, the most painful was to say to my sister, “Sorry, but no, you're going to have to stay with this guy, Mom and I aren't going to be here anymore.” And she was going to be alone, because being with my dad is being alone, right? Before I came back to Mexico I never drank or smoked or took drugs, nothing, but after coming back to Mexico…I was drinking a lot.
Maricela	Miserable because I wasn't with my children. To think that everything [her husband, children, house, and job] went to hell just because of not having a piece of paper.
Beatriz	…emotionally it affected all of us a lot, not only me, because it shatters the dreams you had. My dream has been shelved because it was already defined in another place, and it was well defined…and everything changed. So, well, obviously you, emotionally we are frustrated, me and the kids…I feel very bad…I also sometimes feel guilty.... You realize how the years can go by and it still hurts in the same way.
Damián	…my story is very sad, and if it sounds bad, it feels worse living it, feeling it. That there are times when your own families are those that make you feel bad. I cried. I felt bad…not any more now, it's been eight years, eight years now, now I'm used to it, now it's just work here that is harder, yes, and for less money. Now I'm used to it.
Darío	…I felt like I had lost everything, I mean everything. Not anymore. I felt that my life had ended. They took away my child and sent me back to a country where I don't have family anymore, but all of that had ended a long time ago. I mean, I wasn't close to them even when I was here, and much less now. So yes, I felt really bad. I don't want to be here; I don't want my child to be here. I mean, I'm here because they sent me here; actually I don't want to be here.
Jorge	…I felt sad because I said, so many years in the U.S., and so.... Your mentality when you're young, I said, “Now I'm going to make my life here [in the U.S.], since now I have a family. What am I going to do in Mexico?” As they say, a dog comes back with its tail between its legs, because after so many years, to come back like this, without anything, without any things.
Jonás	…the things, everything I had been able to do [in the U.S.], I had to start to sell it, and juggle things, because well, you need money to pay lawyers, to eat. Everything I had from working was lost.... I came back with a hundred dollars in my pocket, with the same hundred dollars I left with.... I didn't want to accept the reality. Emotionally yes, I'm strong…but in this I wasn't. I mean, how is my wife? How I am going to deal with this? What am I going to do? My baby?
Mariano	So, the reason I'm here in Mexico is because of her because I couldn't take the life of being there anymore.... I mean, it was eighteen years, not my whole life, but all of my childhood and adolescence I was with her. I never let her down, I didn't do anything bad.... I didn't do anything but drink. I want to die, I don't want anything to do with another woman, I don't want to know anything.
Gustavo	I felt bad. I felt guilty. It's the guilt, you know? If I hadn't driven that day.... I felt bad, I felt like I wanted to go back there, that I didn't want to be here. Yes, I felt very bad, I got depressed. When I got back it was depressing to live with my parents again, all of that.... Financially I'm stable, but emotionally not, because I'm still thinking about the U.S.
Martín	…Being expelled, deported from the country for not having certain documents even though I had settled there [in the United States]. Suddenly I feel something here [he touches his chest to refer to an emotion], what is happening or why did it have to happen to me?
Isaac	…I felt bad because it hit me that there was no way for me to stay in the United States. It was a fact, that I was going to be deported, that I was no longer going to be with my family, I did not know this country [Mexico], I felt that the world had ended for me.

Source: Compiled by the author based on interviews.

2.5. Ethical considerations

The project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry (IRB00006105). Appropriate measures were taken to obtain written informed consent, and identities were protected by using pseudonyms.

3. Results

To understand the impact of forced return on each of the subjects, it was necessary to learn about the conditions and milestones they had experienced in the premigration stage. All the subjects referred to their childhood to describe their migratory journey. Although every trajectory is unique, we found a number of points in common, as described below.

3.1. Premigration stage: life conditions that influenced the decision to migrate

We identified two groups of people, the first comprising nine subjects who, despite having experienced periods of economic scarcity, had a standard of living with fewer deprivations. Conversely, the conditions in which the other nine subjects spent their childhood and adolescence were poverty or severe economic deprivation. These circumstances forced them to drop out of school and start work at an early age, especially those from large families, who were obliged to help their parents or caregivers with the expenses of their younger siblings. The most adverse situations were experienced by Darío, Jorge and Martín, who lived on the streets for a period (see Table 2 to read an excerpt from Martín's interview).

Spontaneous expressions used by the subjects included “It was very sad to live like that,” “Life has been very hard on me,” and “I grew up like the plants on the hill” (meaning that the subject received no material or emotional support from their caregivers). According to their perceptions, material deprivation combined with their parents’ neglect (through abandonment, lack of interest, or violence) or the inability to take care of their basic needs as children (due to unemployment, lack of time, or illness). Another significant circumstance mentioned by various subjects was having a boyfriend or girlfriend at an early age. For example, Elena remarked that, “I got married at fifteen and got pregnant with my first daughter at sixteen,” while Mariano said that by thirteen he was already married and a year later he became a father (see extract in Table 2).

We believe that subjects who recounted episodes of material deprivation during most of their premigratory life experienced persistent tensions between this context and their capacity for action (Kleinman, 1997, 2010). These individuals experienced at least two forms of disempowerment, material and psychosocial (Breilh, 2010; Wilkinson, 2013; Marmot, 2016), the latter expressed in emotional distress that manifested as feelings of sadness and abandonment, among others. For them, emigration was a strategy that enabled them to distance themselves from an unfavorable social space (Sayad, 2010).

Another issue that caught our attention due to the emotional distress with which Jorge, Mariano, Ana, Esperanza, Martín and Elena described it, was having lived with a father they described as “macho,” and “alcoholic,” who “used to hit my mom”. Domestic violence, economic precarity, and an environment of emotional distancing or limited affectiveness were attributed to this figure (see excerpt from the interview with Esperanza, who was taken to the United States at the age of eight, (Table 2). The anxiety and sadness caused by these circumstances continued to a greater or lesser extent throughout their adult lives. These accounts are understandable given the traditional patriarchal system that persists in Latin America (Breilh, 1999). This translates, especially for women, into a constant need to negotiate their desires, goals, and rights with their fathers, brothers, or partners. Coupled with the centrality of the family in the collective imaginary, this creates significant pressure to keep the family together. Migration takes place within this logic because many women make the decision to migrate as the result of a decision by men, as in the cases of Beatriz, Maricela, Elena, and Isaac and Esperanza's mothers, who all emigrated to be with the fathers of their children.

Regarding the decision to migrate, Armando, Rodrigo and Gonzalo (see Table 2 for an excerpt from the latter's interview) explained that they did so to support their families, since their salaries were insufficient. For their part, Jonás and Gustavo declared they had decided to migrate to pay for medical treatment. Even though both had jobs, they were unable to afford the treatment. This is a common situation among a significant part of the Mexican population. Even if they have jobs, with social security, neither their income nor the coverage provided by these services is sufficient (Díaz-González and Ramírez-García, 2017). The five subjects said they knew people who had already emigrated, and so they asked for help, and obtained information, the names of contacts, and money for the trip.

A number of subjects confirmed that knowing other immigrants was crucial in making the decision to emigrate as well as making it possible to do so. Rodrigo, Elena, Mariano, Gonzalo, Isaías, Armando, Fernando, Mariano, Jorge, Damián, and Ana, for example, all mentioned that friends and family convinced them that they could improve their financial situation if they emigrated. Their living conditions during their time in the U.S. were also defined by the support they obtained from this social network.

3.2. Time in the U.S.: what you can have there but not here

Subjects thought life would be better in the U.S. because there they would “feel safe,” have “a good life,” “send my family money,” “have an opportunity even without a diploma,” “buy a house,” better themselves, and have access to good health care for children born in the United States. Damián, Darío, Jonás, Isaac and Jonás considered these to be achievements that would be practically impossible in Mexico, given the educational and financial limitations they believed they faced (Table 2). Although they did not have legal residence in the United States, and some, like Ana (see Table 2) had negative experiences related to racism and the fear of being deported—in other words, of political disempowerment and stress—subjects placed a high value on their positive experiences. We found evidence of mixed feelings about the American Dream (better job opportunities with a greater ability to consume) and its negative consequences (long working hours, individualism, high levels of alcohol and drug use) (Woo, 2019; Nicolás, 2019). However, we believe that the possibilities for financial and social mobility helped give subjects a degree of control over their lives (empowerment) that was lacking in their premigration experience in Mexico.

All the subjects had planned to stay in the United States indefinitely. The main reason for Ana, Maricela, Beatriz, Darío, Jorge, Jonás, Martín and Mariano was that they had children who had been born there. Gustavo and Damián planned to stay because of the combination of their good financial situation and social status, and the satisfaction of having become integrated into a social network. For Esperanza, it was the possibility of studying at a recognized university, thanks to her successful academic career; whereas for Isaac it was the environment where he had lived since he was four. The motives mentioned by the subjects coincided with those reported in the literature (De Haas, 2005; Moran-Taylor and Menjívar, 2005; Nekby, 2006; Jensen and Pedersen, 2007; Haug, 2008). All the subjects except Beatriz, Rodrigo, Isaías, Armando, Fernando and Elena have lived continuously in the United States for at least ten years (see Table 1), and their forced return to Mexico meant a complete rupture in their lives, which affected their family dynamics, their medium- and long-term projects, and the predictability of what would happen to them in the short term. As various authors have noted (Dimitrijevic et al., 2004; Durand, 2004; Jardón-Hernández and Hernández-Lara, 2019), they lacked accurate, reliable information during the process of detention or coercion about the possibilities available to them to exercise their rights or minimize the harm to their lives.

3.3. Expulsion from the United States: return and reinsertion into Mexico

Of the eighteen subjects, six returned voluntarily and three said they intended to return to the United States to work. For them, the reintegration process into Mexico did not involve any emotional discomfort because their health, family, social and economic conditions tended to be stable. The other three said they were not planning to travel again. When we asked them about their reasons for remaining in Mexico, they pointed out that the family and emotional cost of leaving the country were significant due to the problems they had to face on their return, as Gonzalo and Armando discussed (see Table 3). For example, Elena had left her three children in Mexico and rather than save money, she preferred to return so as not to neglect her relationship with them (see Table 2).

Regarding the twelve subjects who had no intention of returning to Mexico, four had been forcibly repatriated and eight deported (see Table 1). Six subjects had been at deportation centers (see Table 1). Two of these had been held for a health violation, and the others for traffic offenses or misdemeanors, as in the case of Maricela (see Table 2). Those who had been held said that as a result of the conditions during their detention, they had experienced urinary infections, claustrophobia, depression, and feelings of powerlessness and humiliation, in other words, emotional overload, as described by Tobar (2016) and Quino (2016). We observed that when they described the deportation process and their arrival in Mexico, they retrospectively combined the negative feelings associated with various situations experienced during the pre-migratory stage and during their residence in the US, an eloquent testimony to the “cumulative emotional cost” of their experience before migrating and during the subsequent stages (Rosales-Martínez et al., 2017; Zimmerman et al., 2011).

Four of the subjects were forced to return to Mexico to attempt to regularize their immigration status because of a decision by their spouse or a breakup with a partner. For them, the return process took place without the intervention of any immigration authority, but their decisions were the result of a combination of family pressure and immigration policy rather than a free choice. One example is the case of Ana, as described in Table 2.

Asked how they felt on returning to Mexico, Maricela, Jorge, and Gustavo mentioned sadness, depression, and “feeling miserable” (“sentirse de la chingada”) (see Table 3). Ana said that when she returned, she “cried for a month” (Table 3), since she had wanted to remain in the United States with her children and had faced numerous financial difficulties in trying to get settled in Mexico. If we consider the early conditions of Ana's life, we could say that she not only returned to a physical place, but also a social one, as she once again experienced precarity and uncertainty—as did the other subjects (Sayad, 2010). One of the conflicts that most affected their mood they all mentioned was being forced to live somewhere they did not want to.

When we asked the subjects what and how they felt, we often noted that the men did not verbalize specific emotions, and instead described problematic experiences, as seen, for example, in the excerpts from the interviews with Darío, Jonás, Martín, Isaac, Armando and Mariano (Table 3). We believe it is understandable that emotional distress has taken this form among men because the gender norms for men discourage them from expressing their emotions, especially those that show weakness. As noted by Burin (Burin, 1996, 2012), gender is an important modulator in the construction of suffering in the presence of others.

Regardless of their narrative style or the way they described it, subjects who had returned voluntarily agreed that their mood during the first days and weeks after their return had been marked by the difficulty of accepting their situation, the disappointment and frustration of realizing that the plans, dreams, and projects in the United States in which they had invested time and effort would have to be postponed or discarded. Excerpts from the interviews with Beatriz and Jorge refer to this point (see Table 3). For these migrants, these moods and feelings were combined with worry about practical issues such as finding a job to support their families, finding somewhere to live, obtaining health care, or continuing their studies (see excerpts from interviews with Ana, Damián, Jonás, Table 3). The subjects said that this situation exacerbated their pains and illnesses, as well as previously diagnosed conditions, such as depression and drug use, and increased their stress and anxiety.

Most of the subjects described the obstacles to obtaining various resources and services and agreed that the greatest problem was government bureaucracy. This included the paperwork required to obtain the official identification needed to secure a job or health care, open a bank account, or enroll in university. They also recognized another important obstacle: their limited access to the job market, which is highly restrictive regarding age and qualifications, and offers poorly paid jobs with bad working conditions. They tended to mentally convert pesos to dollars and were aware of the loss of purchasing power they had suffered. These obstacles hampered the process of reincorporation, as has been described in the literature (Ruben et al., 2009; Menjívar et al., 2016; Kleist, 2020; Gandini and Aranzales, 2019).

Finally, asked how they felt after more time had elapsed, some of the subjects expressed more acceptance of their situation than others, as seen in the contrast between the responses of Beatriz, Gustavo, and Darío and that of Damián (Table 3). We believe this difference is associated with at least three factors: how long they had been in Mexico when the interview was conducted, the strength of the social ties with family and friends they had constructed in the United States (Nekby, 2006; Jensen and Pedersen, 2007; Haug, 2008), their perception of the magnitude of the loss of status related to work and economic independence, and the circumstances of their return. The latter included whether they had been in a detention center and whether they had received support from their families in Mexico.

4. Discussion

In this study, we examined some of the experiences of a group of returned migrants to Mexico at various stages of the immigration process: before migrating, during their residence in the United States, when they returned, and in the process of reincorporation into Mexico. As we mentioned, during the pre-migration stage, some subjects suffered financial difficulties, whereas others continuously experienced all the consequences of economic and social deprivation. The accounts of those in the latter group explained the effects of what the theory calls “inequities” and what they described as material poverty. This began in childhood and continued through early youth, as the result of a lack of education, poorly paid jobs, and the difficulties of living with an alcoholic, macho father. These conditions occurred simultaneously, persisted for years, and led to a multiplicity of expulsions from the family, school, health care, the labor market, social security, and, as Khosravi (2018) describes, they also led to expulsion from their country of origin. One could say that the interweaving of inequities and expulsions defined the “decision” to migrate, as well as having negative effects on the psychosocial well-being of the subjects and their families.

What the subjects recounted, particularly when they shared their perceptions of the psychosocial dimension during the pre-migration stage has enabled us to understand how emotional discomfort was constructed, which can be explained by Kleinman's postulate (Kleinman, 1997, 2010). This states that all suffering is the result of social processes related to various contexts such as financial factors, political situations, social relations and cultural conventions (Kleinman, 1997, 2010). We also understand that much of the emotional discomfort of those who were returned began in the earliest stages of life and continued throughout the migratory trajectory. This type of distress is not caused by a single event, or simply the accumulation of adverse events that may suddenly appear in an individual's path. It is the result of a combination of processes relating to the systems of social, economic, and cultural production in Mexico, which have long prevailed and affect the majority of the population. These processes continue for lengthy periods, and are transmitted from generation to generation (Breilh, 1999, 2010; Rivera, 2013; Ordaz Díaz and Li Ng, 2016; Gandini and Aranzales, 2019).

As shown in the accounts of the subjects, during their stay in the United States, emotional discomfort was associated with circumstances inherent to their immigration status. Once they were in contexts in which they could exercise their agency, as in the work they performed during their residence in the United States, they achieved a considerable improvement in their financial situation, together with periods of social stability. Migrating and working in the United States enabled them to acquire a degree of control over their lives, reducing some of the material and social disempowerment (their self-perception of poverty) they had experienced in Mexico. However, this is where their political disempowerment began or was worsened (Breilh, 2010; Wilkinson, 2013; Marmot, 2016). Racism, their lack of documents and freedom, and their strategies for protecting themselves from the immigration authorities hampered their participation in public life, and restricted benefits such as health service use. For some of those who were returned, it made them vulnerable to another, formal expulsion that would require them to return to their country of origin, which they described as a hostile social space.

On their return to Mexico, the voluntary modality was associated with two different positions. In the first, neither the return nor reinsertion were associated with any emotional discomfort, whereas in the second, physical distancing from the family nucleus entailed an emotional cost. At the same time, people who are deported or have been forcibly returned experience significant physical and emotional exhaustion, either because of the decisions they are forced to make, or because of the detention process and the return journey reported in various studies (Palacios et al., 2015; Martínez-Buján, 2016; Kleinman, 1997; Herrera and Moncayo, 2019; Radziwinowiczówna, 2020). When they reach the border, they have experienced harm to their health, identity, security, social networks, and financial status that some describe in terms of the sadness, depression, frustration, and demanding situations they have experienced throughout their lives. This condition has been described as emotional overload (Tobar, 2016). That said, we confirm that the impact on the psychological well-being of people who are forcibly returned or deported tends to be more negative than on that of those who return voluntarily (Zimmerman et al., 2011; Fernández-Niño et al., 2014; Bojorquez et al., 2015; Rosales-Martínez et al., 2017; Radziwinowiczówna, 2020).

In the post-return stage, when this occurs forcibly or by means of deportation, the emotional distress experienced depends on the strength of the social connections they constructed in the United States and those they maintained in Mexico, as well as their perception of the magnitude of their loss of family, housing, employment, economic independence, and social status (Cassarino, 2004; Schramm, 2011; Rivera, 2013; Nicolás, 2019; Woo, 2019). The more they feel these losses, the longer it takes them to accept their new situation. The prevailing sentiment among returnees is that they have not only been robbed of a physical and social space, but also of the time they invested during their residence in the United States (Sayad, 2010). We confirmed that those with the worst conditions before migration usually encountered the worst conditions on their return and reincorporation (Boyd and Grieco, 2002; Ruben et al., 2009; Tobar, 2016; Herrera and Moncayo, 2019; Nicolás, 2019), which may be related to the emotional distress that shaped the preliminary stages of their lives. Even though part of this distress is reduced during their time in the United States, it is exacerbated on their return to Mexico and the precarious conditions there.

We should recall that there are structural adversities in the scenario of reincorporation in which state policy maintains the logic of the systems of inequality that encourage the idea that individuals must use their own social, economic, familial, and personal resources to resolve the effects of socioeconomic contradictions, without considering the disadvantages they have accumulated throughout their lifespan (Breilh, 1999, 2010; Álvarez, 2009; Marmot, 2016; Khosravi, 2018). Among the group of those who were forcefully returned or deported, we observed that these disadvantages are compounded by problems related to the administrative handling of documents (such as identity documents) that slow down and reduce their capacity for individual agency in their reincorporation. We believe that national policies regarding return migrants should pay greater attention to this group, which to date has been invisible in its own country. To this end, it may be useful to do away with the idea of “returning home,” as other authors have already suggested, including Rivera (2013), Golash-Boza and Ceciliano (2018), Woo (2019), and Caldwell (2019). Another issue to consider is that for many return migrants, the process of reincorporation may itself seem like a form of duress, because they do not want to be in Mexico. We therefore believe that the migratory ordeal and its attendant harm continue indefinitely after the return to their country of origin.

The migratory ordeal should not therefore be understood as a personal problem. Nor should it be “normalized” as a clinical condition or regarded as a collection of separate phenomena, such as domestic violence, depression, and post-traumatic stress (Kleinman, 1997, 2010). It would be more useful to approach it as a social problem that is inextricably linked to psychosocial, material, and political disempowerment (Breilh, 1999, 2010; Álvarez, 2009; Marmot, 2016). It should be addressed through social interventions that restore the agency of various groups, especially immigrants, to provide them with access to education, health care, the job market, food security, housing, and gender equity.

With respect to gender differences, we found that men who leave children behind in the United States worry most about their limited ability to continue supporting them, whereas women are concerned about being unable to provide them with everyday care. Another situation that affects return migrants according to their gender is social finger-pointing on the part of family and friends regarding the failure to fulfill what they consider their “obligations,” such as being a provider or caregiver or keeping the family together. As Burin (1996, 2012) notes, gender also shapes the ability to provide a description of each of the stages (premigration, residence in the United States, return, and reincorporation). Women describe their emotions more than men, who tend to talk about anecdotes, problems, and situations.

One of the strengths of the paper is that, thanks to the use of the anthropological interview technique, it has been possible to carefully describe how social unrest is linked to social, economic, and political processes, rather than conceiving them as exclusively individual phenomena, which would correspond to the clinical field. Likewise, having retrospectively explored the pre-migratory stage and the emotional discomfort that prevailed during it, enabled us to understand how they influence the experiences of return and reintegration. This allowed us to highlight the complexity of the phenomenon of return when it is marked by adverse social environments and processes. One of the limitations of this study is that the findings cannot be generalized to all migrants who returned voluntarily, were deported, or were forcibly returned. Another limitation is that the subjects included few women and were mostly from the central part of the country. Future studies should include more women, people from other parts of the country, and those with different migration trajectories (for example, those who have emigrated to countries other than the United States) to broaden our knowledge of the factors related to the origin and construction of emotional distress.

5. Conclusions

We believe that this study provides discursive evidence on the relevance of pre-migration living conditions in the onset of the emotional discomfort of returned Mexican migrants. Through the use of the theoretical construct of emotional discomfort, structural aspects are included in a discussion that is usually restricted to the subjective and clinical dimension. The study also provides information on the stage following forced return. Contrary to what one might expect, this group of returned persons does not automatically enjoy the rights of Mexican citizenship such as identity, health care, and education.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or nonprofit sectors.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.