In a reflection, published in the LA Public Press, Doris Anahi Muñoz says “According to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 271,484 people were deported from the United States in fiscal year 2024. Each deportation fractured entire families like mine. Many of our parents came to the United States convinced of the American Dream only to find themselves living a nightmare. They sacrificed their own dreams and careers and worked exploited clandestinely 24 hours a day, all without any possibility of obtaining citizenship. Now I find myself, like other first generation American kids sharing similar stories online, pursuing a reverse migration toward the “Mexican Dream.”
There is no doubt that the so-called “American Dream” is a story from the post-World War II era, which ended in 1945, where the great victor, the US, became the “global beacon” of what should be aspired to and achieved. This, coupled with the inherent poverty of our Latin American peoples, governed by corrupt politicians and elites who did not allow for the economic and social growth of our communities,
Immigration and Customs has contributed to this situation.
Enforcement (ICE) destroyed the American Dream for thousands of families; now, many born
in the US pursue the Mexican Dream. In the last seven years, the government of Manuel López Obrador, and now that of Claudia Sheinbaum, has helped 13.5 million people escape poverty. Mexico has gone from being one of the countries with the greatest social
gap between rich and poor to being, today, the second country with the smallest social gap in the Americas, after Canada.
More than 25 years after Mexico began recognizing people with dual nationality, some children of Mexican immigrants born in the United States are claiming citizenship in the country their parents once left. In addition, Mexico is currently home to more than one million Americans — the largest population of U.S. citizens living outside the United States — with an estimated 700,000 in Mexico City alone.