On the final page of my friend Juan's Mexican passport are two words, handwritten in English and in capital letters: "ORDERED REMOVED."
Following are 43 numbers, letters, parentheses, and other marks, courtesy of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which deported him from Newark Airport in May 2015 when he was attempting to visit his American wife's family for two weeks.
The reason Juan was "removed", like faulty merchandise or a pile of rubbish, was that he had once entered the US without papers to work as a waiter - as so many Mexicans have been forced to do thanks in part to the pernicious economic falloutof the US-imposed North American Free Trade Agreement.
Of course, Juan was luckier than most people on the receiving end of DHS "removal" services - not to mention the countless Latin American migrants that perish along the border, as recently happened to Juan's own cousin. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.