SAN DIEGO — Carlos Gonzalez has lived nearly all his 29 years in a country he considers home but now finds himself on the wrong side of the border — and the wrong side of a proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that would grant legal status to millions of people.
Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly 2 million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president.
"I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California. "The United States is all I know."
While a Senate bill introduced in April would bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, not everyone would benefit. They include anyone who arrived after Dec. 31, 2011, those with gay partners legally in the U.S., siblings of U.S. citizens and many deportees such as Gonzalez.
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