On the Line

Every year, over 100,000 Mexicans living in the USA are deported to Mexico. Many of them have grown up and spent decades in America, working, paying taxes, starting families. Some can’t even speak Spanish. In a matter of days. they find themselves torn away from their children and loved ones and escorted across the border. Unable to return home and unable to appeal their deportation.

The border town of Tijuana has become an airlock between two worlds, where the broken lives of migrants end up. For many of these deportees, the only work available is in relocated American call centres. They spend their days answering calls from American consumers, pretending to be working from America, and their evenings looking at the lights from across the border, trying to maintain some some of contact with their families left behind.

Rocio, Richard and Sergio are just three of those affected. We follow them for nearly a year as they struggle to make sense of the situation they are now in and rebuild their lives.