By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

KINI, Mexico — On a hot June night Jesús Cruz at last returned to Kini, the small town in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula where he spent the first 17 years of his life.

His sister greeted him with tearful hugs. The next morning she took him to see their infirm mother, who whispered in his ear: “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

After decades away, Cruz was finally home.

Yet he was not home.

So much of what he loved was 3,000 miles away in Southern California, where he resided for 33 years until immigration agents swarmed the car wash where he worked and hauled him away in handcuffs.

Cruz missed his friends and Booka, his little white dog. His missed his house, his car, his job.

But most of all, he missed his wife, Noemi Ciau, and their four childr

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