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What happens to people after they are deported from the United States? And if they no longer have family in their countries of origin, how do they make their way in an unfamiliar place?

In 2014, Christina Zaldivar found herself pondering these questions with some fellow activists after she had accompanied one of them to an immigration check-in in Centennial, Colorado. That friend had been living without legal status in the U.S. for more than 30 years and had no family left in Mexico.

鈥淲e sat in [a coffee shop] afterward for about an hour or two talking about this,鈥� recalls Zaldivar, who is a member of #Not1More, an informal, immigrant-led campaign sponsored by American Friends Service Committee that advocates for and supports those caught up in deportation proceedings.

鈥淎nd we鈥檙e asking, 鈥榃hat are people supposed to do, how do they find help? If you鈥檝e not been there for 30-plus years, and they just drop you at the border, where could you go to find resources?鈥欌��

That 2014 conversation led to the creation in October 2019 of a called Crossing South, which provides those returning to four countries鈥擬exico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala鈥攚ith information they鈥檒l find useful along the way.

鈥淲e both had been afraid of the 鈥榰nknown expectations鈥� of being tossed back South with no knowledge of what resources would be available to the already mentally, emotionally, and financially broke victims of our broken immigration system,鈥� Zaldivar says.

Some 262,591 to countries around the world during fiscal year 2019, an increase of 4% from the previous year, according to figures from ICE.

Their conversation turned out to be prescient.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had allowed the fellow activist she鈥檇 accompanied to the check-in to remain in the U.S. until his daughter graduated from college. Then a few weeks after the coffee shop conversation, 鈥渟ure as shit, they took him,鈥� she says. He was then sent back to Mexico.

And then in November 2019, Zaldivar鈥檚 husband, Jorge Rafael Zaldivar Mendieta, was detained and in January, he, too, was deported to Mexico. Although he was eligible for permanent legal status because of their marriage, (she is a U.S. citizen), he had been checking in with ICE after a simple paperwork error had stymied his green card application.

After living in the U.S. for more than two decades, Zaldivar Mendieta had joined the multitudes of people the government deports each year鈥攅ither after they鈥檝e been held in detention in cities across the country or apprehended at the border.

Some 262,591 to countries around the world during fiscal year 2019, an increase of 4% from the previous year, according to figures from ICE.

More than 90 percent of those deportees were from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. And while the number of Mexicans deported declined nearly 10% between 2018 and 2019, the number of those returned to the three Central American countries rose during that same time鈥攂y as much as 44% to Honduras, for example鈥攁 reflection of the surge of asylum-seekers from those countries in recent years.

often are flown to U.S. border cities and are either walked or bused across the border. Those from Central America are flown directly to their home countries.

Zaldivar said that, after the coffee shop discussion, she became obsessed with creating guidelines to help people who are deported鈥攅specially those who had been outside their countries of origin for so long that they no longer had any current contacts there. 鈥淚 kept coming back to the idea, over and over. I couldn鈥檛 let it go,鈥� she says. American Friends worked with her and the other activists from the group to create and produce the guide.

鈥淐rossing South鈥� draws on American Friends鈥� decade-plus experience navigating the detention and deportation system, community-based programs in the four countries, and extensive research. It distributes the guide through targeted outreach鈥攅mail blasts, social media posts, through immigration attorneys and advocates, and at public events. Also, the organization is working on a number of fronts to get the information to people in ICE detention.

The list of available shelters along the border comes in handy for those who arrive with no idea where else to go.

Crossing South is available online in both Spanish and English, and in a wallet-sized hard copy version people can easily carry with them. It explains what people can do if they have time to plan before they are removed, or what they can do if they are suddenly detained and then deported.

The guide offers advice about obtaining credentials in the consulates of the four countries, including getting passports and making arrangements for children who will remain the U.S. It also includes a list of nonprofit organizations working on the ground鈥攊n the case of Mexico, along the border鈥攖hat can assist with basic needs.

The guide comes in handy when people land on the other side of the border with no idea where to even find something to eat or a safe place to sleep that first night, says Kathy Bougher, an activist with Coloradans for Immigrant Rights, another American Friends-supported group.

Immigration officials, she says 鈥渨alk them up or bring them by bus to the border and take them to a Mexican office where they give them some orientation for, I don鈥檛 know, an hour or two, maybe a sandwich, a bottle of orange juice, and then good luck. 鈥� Sometimes it鈥檚 just adult men and women and sometimes it鈥檚 also children,鈥� Bougher says.

They all face the same challenge: 鈥淲here do they stay, where do they go when they walk out the door of that building?鈥�

Bougher, who has spent time in migrant shelters in Mexico and Central America, says the Mexican government sometimes helps deportees pay for bus tickets, or family members send them money for tickets back to their home cities. For Mexicans who speak only indigenous languages, the northern border, she says, 鈥渕ight as well be another country.鈥�

along the Mexican side of the border, and deportees often stand out and are vulnerable, Bougher says. Detention center guards confiscate of detainees, which makes them clearly identifiable at the border. And because they are coming from the U.S., there might be an assumption that they have family with money, she adds. 鈥淭hey are absolute targets,鈥� she says. They鈥檙e subject to robbery, to kidnappings, to extortion鈥︹��

The list of available shelters along the border comes in handy for those who arrive with no idea where else to go, but recent deportees may also find themselves competing for shelter space with U.S.-bound asylum-seekers stuck at the border under its .

Gabriela Flora, program director with American Friends Services Committee, says the hope is that the guide won鈥檛 be necessary in the future, 鈥渢hat we cut funds to ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection], end corporations profiting off of pain, end detention and deportations and create a path to citizenship.鈥�

鈥淏ut that vision immigrants and allies are working for is far from here, and there is a need to know how to be as safe and well-informed as possible when the difficult and awful act of deportation happens,鈥� Flora says.

For now, Zaldivar and her family are trying to determine what they鈥檒l do if her husband is not allowed to return to the U.S. Because he still has family in Mexico City, she says, it wasn鈥檛 necessary for him to use the guide. His immigration case is pending review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

鈥淎s far as future planning goes, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place with taking the kids [to Mexico] or leaving them,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he government could never give us back what was taken from us.鈥�