MEXICO CITY - In one of Mexico's most storied neighborhoods, the number of newcomers continues to grow with every deportation.

Neighbors aren't quite sure what to make of them. Some say they're agents of change, some call them yesterday's trash.

Either way, most can't speak Spanish properly.

As the drama of family separations from Central America plays out across the United States, here in Mexico, an unusual reunification is quietly taking shape as Mexicans who lived most of their lives north of the border embrace their new lives back where they were born. As labor shortages increase across the U.S. and the number of Mexicans in the country decreases, a question arises: Where did the Mexicans go?

Many returned here, to Little L.A.

These days, so many of Mexico's sons and daughters have been deported from the U.S. that the Colonia Tabacalera neighborhood, home to the Monument to the Revolution, is increasingly known as Little L.A.

"The United States is deporting the best back to Mexico, people hungry and determined for a second chance," said Israel Concha, founder of a group called New Beginnings, or Nuevos Comienzos, for deportees starting over. "All these people represent brilliant minds, the most energetic, ambitious ones coming back to Mexico."

From left to right, Maria Herrera, Jorge Niño, Jeimmy Leyva and Israel Concha walk the neighborhood known as Little LA. on April 23, 2018, in Mexico City. All formed an NGO known as New Beginnings, Nuevos Comienzos to help Mexicans repatriated from the United States. (Alfredo Corchado / Staff photographer)

In the first five months of 2018, the U.S. deported an estimated 93,365 Mexicans, up from 63,352 in the same time period last year, according to Mexico's Interior Ministry. Many returned to communities across Mexico.

More than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants were deported under eight years of President Barack Obama. The majority of deportations under Obama took place at the beginning of his presidency while his administration pursued a broad goal of achieving immigration reform through legislation, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

But under the Trump administration, many immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, are treated as unwelcomed. President Donald Trump has derided immigrants from "s--- hole countries" and repeatedly warned citizens that immigrants are causing crime across the U.S. Groups like the Washington Office on Latin America have noted that in some parts of the U.S., immigrants are viewed as inferior, a threat to national security and to American jobs.

Because of growing suspicions of U.S. attitudes, a stronger economy and hopes for better times in Mexico, fewer Mexicans want to go north, too.

Apprehension of Mexicans crossing into the U.S. fell to 127,000 in 2017 from a peak of 1.6 million back in 2000.

In a poll this summer by The Dallas Morning News and its partners, Reforma newspaper and the University of North Texas-Dallas, only about half of respondents - 48 percent - said they would consider immigrating to the U.S., even if they were provided with legal documents.

The national poll surveyed 1,200 potential voters and had a margin error of 3.8 percentage points.

For many Mexicans, the U.S. is anything but welcoming.

"When you see the United States from here, it doesn't look that appealing anymore, at least not the land of opportunity that I grew up believing in," said Jeimmy Leyva, 22, who was deported from Illinois in 2010. "Too much hatred, divisions. Mexico isn't so bad. All you need is a little help from the top and this can truly be a fantastic place to live. These are exciting times. We have a new president. This is home now."

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pledged to transform Mexico by creating enough economic development projects to slow down migration even more, so much that Trump may even stop repeating his favorite line: Build That Wall, advisers to the president-elect say.

Some deportees say López Obrador, who takes office December 1, will have his hands full immediately; he'll need to create opportunities for those who have already been deported back to Mexico.

They're fresh from places like Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley, Chicago, Denver and Dallas. Many congregate on Buenavista Avenue, filled with street food stands and barbershops, some operated by deportees. Others work at telemarketing call centers where rising numbers of people who once lived in the U.S. -- their broken Spanish floating above the laughter -- raise the ire of some locals.

For generations, Mexicans have displayed tolerance for political and economic refugees, from Jews to Spaniards, Cubans, Chileans to Argentines. These days, Mexico's generosity is being sorely tested, not just by an influx of Central Americans, but by its own sons and daughters. The rise in the number of deportees is causing some trepidation.

Consider Jose Luis Mendeta, a waiter whose restaurant is near a call center. During breaks, men and women speak mostly English. Asked for directions to "Little LA," Mendeta instead offered a few cuss words.

"There isn't a [expletive] Little LA. This is Tabacalera," he said. "That's what these imbeciles call it, but they can't even speak Spanish. I even doubt they're Mexican. Where are their documents? They come back and act as though they can teach us something. What can the United States under Trump teach us? They're nothing but scum, trash with their tattoos."

Cynthia Rivera Garcia, a street vendor with a sticker that reads: "Little LA" looks on in disapproval. "They're just people like us, working hard, sweat pouring down their brows to make something better of themselves," she said, staring Mendeta down. "I don't care how good, or bad their Spanish is. We all have a relative or friend living up there."

Juan Guevara from Dallas and his friend Jorge Nino from California in front of Monument to the Revolution on April 23, 2018, in Mexico City. Both were repatriated to Mexico and now trying to find ways to fit into a country they know little about. (Alfredo Corchado / Staff photographer)

Juan Guevara, 55, smiles and nods at Rivera. Guevara is a father of three. He self-deported from Dallas last year, afraid of renewing his driver's license for fear authorities would find out he was undocumented. He returned to his native city that he hadn't seen in over 30 years. He looks quietly at his friends. Most of them, he said, are homesick, lost, but not out. They greet one another over quesadillas, high-fives, fist pumps, nods of the head, phrases of "what up, carnal."

Guevara said he is taking a five-month software program called Holacode with a guarantee that once certified he may be making about 30,000 pesos per month. He believes he has a promising future because of his bilingual, bicultural background. In a thriving globalized society, he said, being binational is the way to go, though he admits he misses his family, including his daughter who just graduated from high school in Dallas and enlisted in the U.S. Army. A son is headed for the University of North Texas. A third daughter is in high school.

"They belong in Dallas, in the U.S.," he said. "Imagine you're picked up from a street of Dallas and they drop you off in Mars and you have to figure everything out. That's what happened to me."

Guevara's phone rang, a Dallas Cowboys helmet flashing on the screen. His wife was on the other line. After a bit, he hung up. "I miss my family so, so much, the Dallas Cowboys, Texas barbeque. Go Cowboys."

Deportations are anything but new. Mexicans were deported in great numbers the 1930s and 1950s. But this time around, times are different. Mexico's birth rate, once among the world's highest, is in free fall as the deportees arrive in the land of their birth. In the 1970s, Mexican women had on average nearly seven children each, but now the rate is just over two.

Arnold Guaderrama was deported from Dallas where he grew up. He misses Dallas, as his tattoo demonstrates. (By Alfredo Corchado / The Dallas Morning News)

"We're becoming extinct," joked Arnold Guaderrama, who also grew up in Dallas. "A rare species. Someday we'll actually miss each other."

Towering over the neighborhood is Mexico's famed Monument to the Revolution. Depending on who you ask, the monument is either a symbol of the nation's 21st Century social awakening, which ushered in miles of infrastructure such as roads and dams, and led to educational gains. Or, others say, the monument is a sad sign of Mexico's incomplete, some say, failed revolution that over the decades pushed generations of Mexicans into the United States.

Maria Herrera, here in front of a call center in neighborhood known as Little LA. in Mexico City on April 23, 2018, spent most of her life in Colorado before being deported back to Mexico She speaks broken Spanish and also doesn't have Mexican documents to confirm her birthplace. (Alfredo Corchado / Staff photographer)

To many of the deportees in Little L.A., the monument represents everything from renewal to unrequited love.

"The struggle then and now is real," said Maria Herrera, 26, as she looked at the monument and smiled nervously. She was 5 years old when her parents took her from Ecatepec, a suburb outside of Mexico City, to Colorado. There she attended school and later worked as an office administrative assistant. She was deported in April and struggled to obtain her Mexican birth certificate documents.

"I'm afraid of being deported," she said. "It's a constant fear I have going back to when I was a little girl, but now I'm looking at deportation from Mexico, the country where I was born in. I feel like a nomad."

Concha looks at the dome atop the monument and waxes poetic, speaking of hope. He lived in Texas, mostly San Antonio, for 30 years. He experienced many firsts: Elementary, high school and college graduation, marriage, the birth of a son and divorce. He lived in the U.S. for so long that he said it's hard to discard what he calls "my American values, optimism, spirit of renewal."

In Texas, he ran his own flourishing transportation company, making a six-figure salary. One evening he was detained by a police officer for running a red light. He couldn't provide documentation and was jailed. He fought deportation for two years before being kicked back to Mexico. Once deported in 2015, he was kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo and held for ransom.

When he arrived in Mexico City he walked around the monument and couldn't put behind the irony before him. He began the New Beginnings nonprofit as a support system for the growing binational community that now numbers more than 1,000, he said.

Aside from Mexican Americans, members include Central Americans and deportees from other countries living across the region. Over the years, he said, they've helped more than 5,000 people start new lives with the help of donations from relatives and friends living in the U.S. The monument, he said, is key to his inspiration.

"This is a revolution of new ideas," said Concha. "What you're seeing is something being born right here in this neighborhood. We're creating our own thing, our own opportunity, a barbershop there, a hamburger joint here, a taqueria, or a software engineer. A culture of accountability. We're building our own dream. Maybe it won't be the American dream, but it will be our own."