Mexico City's 'Little LA' absorbs Mexican nationals deported from US

Reentry group’s founder expects ‘mass deportations’ in coming months

With its wide avenues lined with tall palm trees, its cafés and old-school cantinas, and the mix of English and Spanish spoken on the street, Tabacalera in downtown Mexico City has a distinctly US feel. The neighborhood has consequently become known as Little LA, a nickname that now describes more than its atmosphere.

In recent years, Tabacalera has drawn Mexican nationals deported from the United States, particularly those who spent years or decades living across the border and for whom Mexico now feels like a foreign country. In Little LA, they have found a more familiar place to belong.

The Trump administration has deported roughly 145,500 Mexican nationals since taking office for the second time in January 2025, according to The Guardian. With the administration expanding immigration enforcement, deportations to Mexico are expected to surge, according to The Guardian.

Christopher Gil Ortíz was on his way to work in Los Angeles in June when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped, handcuffed and detained him, according to The Guardian. After months of living in constant fear as an undocumented immigrant in the US, Ortíz said the detention came as a relief.

“At this point I was like, OK, that’s it, I’m going back,” he said. “It’s like they took a weight off my shoulders.”

More than 30 years after leaving Mexico as a child, Ortíz was sent back without his wife and two young children. He was initially dropped in Tulum, then made his way to Cancún, where all his belongings were stolen from his hotel room. He eventually reached Mexico City, where he had family.

Ortíz faced the challenges confronting many recent deportees: obtaining a birth certificate, securing an ID and finding work. His sister sent him a TikTok post from New Comienzos, a local organization established to help returnees reintegrate, prompting him to visit the neighborhood.

“I was nervous,” he said. “Even though I was born here, I have very vague memories of the city itself.” After arriving, Ortíz found that the palm trees made the neighborhood feel more familiar. “Seeing the palm trees, it kind of does make you feel like you’re in LA,” he said.

Israel Concha established New Comienzos after seeing the limited support the Mexican government was offering recent arrivals. In 2012, he was living in Texas with his pregnant wife and running a successful private transportation business after 30 years in the US. “I wanted to try to achieve that American dream, and I think I succeeded,” he told The Guardian.

Concha was stopped for speeding while driving to meet a client and spent two years fighting his case in detention before his 2014 deportation. On his first day in Mexico, he said, a criminal gang working with local police kidnapped him. After being severely beaten, Concha escaped to Mexico City, where he found work at a bilingual call center. Other call centers were opening in Tabacalera and attracting young returnees who spoke fluent English. Less than a year later, Concha started New Comienzos to address the challenges he had faced.

“People didn’t just need a job; many of them needed emotional support because they had just lost everything following a deportation,” he said. The organization now provides legal support, free English certification and classes, and mentorship, while Little LA remains its center of operations.

“A community reintegration lab,” Concha said, “that’s what we’ve created there in Little Los Angeles.” He is preparing for the number of returnees to grow.

“The atmosphere [in the US] right now is one of humanitarian crisis and panic. People no longer even want to take their children to school,” Concha told The Guardian. “You’ll probably start seeing mass deportations in a few months.”

Sergio Aaron Pérez, 36, told The Guardian that he was deported in 2011 after living in the US for more than 30 years. He said his deportation followed what he called “bad things,” a characterization he did not elaborate on. Pérez found work at a call center in Little LA.

“If you speak English there’s a lot of money,” Pérez said. “I love my city. There’s a lot of community.”

Ortíz had little interest in call-center work. He applied for a job at a glass-making factory, where he had worked in the US, and next planned to bring his wife and children to Mexico. “My kids are OK with it,” he said. His daughter had also embraced a local custom, he added: “My daughter told me that she was already practising drinking soda out of a plastic bag.”