Deported U.S. Citizen Is Returned to Family

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Associated Press
Wednesday, August 8, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 -- A wrongly deported U.S. citizen who was missing for nearly three months in Mexico ate out of garbage cans, bathed in rivers and was repeatedly turned away by U.S. border agents when he tried to return to California, his family said Tuesday.

Pedro Guzman, 29, was picked up at the Calexico border crossing over the weekend. He was released to his family on Tuesday.

Guzman was shaking and stuttering and appeared traumatized, his family said at a news conference. Family members said they plan to seek medical attention for Guzman, who was not at the news conference.

"They took him whole but only returned half of him to me," his mother, Maria Carbajal, said in Spanish while crying. "The government is responsible for this."

The family had been searching for Guzman in Tijuana since he was deported on May 11.

They said Guzman told them on Tuesday that he had tried to return to the United States several times but was turned away.

Authorities and the family have presented conflicting versions of how Guzman was deported.