Illegal aliens in love

Love blooms in unlikely places sometimes. Like, say, in the not normally very romantic city of Tijuana:

Nearly 600 Mexican couples tied the knot in a mass Valentine's Day wedding by the U.S. border on Thursday, many of them undocumented migrants who met while working illegally in the United States.

As a live band blasted out sugary Mexican love songs in the border city of Tijuana, a short walk from the busy San Ysidro crossing into California, a judge simultaneously married a crowd of couples whose ages ranged from 16 to 65.

More than three-quarters were migrants returning from, or trying to get into, the United States.

"Isn't she gorgeous? I love her!" said Inocencio Felix of his new wife Angelica Perez, 36, dressed in a flouncy white wedding gown. Perez was deported by U.S. immigration officials two weeks ago from the state of Oregon, where the couple met.

Felix, also living in the United States illegally, said he came back to the Mexican border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego, voluntarily for the mass open-air wedding.

"We're going to go back to the United States soon, our life is there," he said, holding a heart-shaped pink balloon.

Uh, Señor Felix, are you sure it's a good idea to tell the world that you and the missus will be sneaking back into the U.S. illegally sometime in the near future?

Mexico's civil registry office began the mass weddings several years ago with migrants in mind, and has seen the number of couples attending surge as deportation rates grow.

Hey, who said getting deported was necessarily a bad thing? I mean, look at me, a legal citizen who's never been kicked out of the country, and yet, still single.