ACAPULCO, Mexico -- Eduardo Vielma works in Paradise, a three-level restaurant and bar perched on the edge of the yellow beaches and shimmering waters of the Bay of Acapulco.

But he desperately wants to be in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Vielma, 26, spent five years in Western Pennsylvania as an illegal immigrant, earning as much as $2,400 a month as a cook in several Robinson eateries. He met Melody Luchuck, of DuBois, Clearfield County. They fell in love and moved in together.

Last summer, two weeks before he and Ms. Luchuck planned to marry, Mr. Vielma and his brother, Alberto Vielma, were arrested at a Kohl's department store and handed over to immigration authorities. Their detention came at a time when some newcomers in Allegheny County's growing Latino community were complaining about racial profiling by suburban police departments.

Now, Eduardo Vielma is back in his native Acapulco, where the sun seems to always shine but good jobs are scarce. He earns about $5 working as a busboy during a seven-hour shift at Paradise. Tips can bridge the vast gap with his Pittsburgh salary, but, on some weekdays, the restaurant is mostly empty.

Still, money is not his focus.

"Melody changed my life. I was so happy. You know when you've found the apple of your eye?" he said last month, sitting on his bed in the small house he shares with his parents, two brothers, sister-in-law and 1-year-old niece.

A framed picture of Mr. Vielma, his arm draped around Ms. Luchuck, sits on a night stand, next to a large cross.

Back in Pittsburgh, Ms. Luchuck is working as a paralegal and waitress to cover her mounting bills, and she has hired an immigration lawyer to help Mr. Vielma return.

"It's going to cost me a lot more than I thought," she said. "But he's worth every penny."

In the 1950s, 6-year-old Jose Vielma joined tens of thousands of Mexicans from the country's interior who came to Acapulco in search of better wages in the booming tourist industry. He shined shoes and sold newspapers until he could get a job as a waiter at a restaurant.

He then met and married Elfega Perez, a cook. They built a sturdy concrete house in one of the rapidly growing neighborhoods on the hills overlooking the bay. They also both started working at Paradise, famed for its "Huachinango a la Talla," or red snapper with spicy salsa. Elizabeth Taylor once dined there.

The couple's second-oldest son, Eduardo, went to work at Paradise when he was 10, renting life preservers to tourists.

Eduardo Vielma jumped from job to job -- cleaning at the Copacabana Hotel, serving food at a taco shop and, eventually, waiting tables at Paradise's beach level, where he could keep 10 percent of his sales.

As he reached adulthood, Mr. Vielma felt an urge to do something else. He wanted a chance to travel and see new places, just like the hordes of tourists who came to Acapulco. Even though he had never been on a plane, he decided to become a pilot.

Flight school would cost money, much more than he was earning serving "Sexy Tango" drinks to scantily clad foreigners at Paradise. In May 2003, when he was 20, Mr. Vielma contacted an aunt living near Los Angeles. She offered to help him cross into the United States illegally.

Mr. Vielma didn't think about alternative ways of heading north, like the majority of immigrants attempting to come to the United States in the early years of the decade. Work visas were scarce, but a strong American economy beckoned with well-paying jobs.

From 2000 to March of last year, the undocumented Mexican population in the United States jumped from 4.8 million to 7 million, according to a recent report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Mr. Vielma planned to work for two years, then return to Acapulco for flight lessons. At the time, he spoke almost no English. He was reluctant to make the journey alone, so he recruited two friends from Paradise, Refugio Ramirez and another man, who still lives in the United States without documentation.

Mr. Vielma's parents didn't want him to leave. But they didn't stand in his way.

"It's a personal decision," Jose Vielma, 64, said of his son. "He's one of those people who fights to stand out."

Eduardo Vielma and his two friends made a 12-hour bus journey to Veracruz, on Mexico's eastern coast, to meet a man named Miguel. He was a "coyote," or human smuggler, whom Mr. Vielma's aunt had paid several thousand dollars.

Miguel brought the three men and two others to Mexico City, and they flew north -- Mr. Vielma's first trip on a plane -- and ended up in the town of Altar, on the border with Arizona.

They then merged with a group of 12 people and set out across the mountainous Sonoran Desert, with Miguel leading the way. He rarely spoke, Mr. Vielma said.

"If we get caught, don't tell them I'm a coyote," he said to the group.

They traveled only at night to avoid detection by U.S. border patrol agents. During the day, they slept under trees to avoid the fiery desert sun.

Mr. Vielma carried a small backpack with a change of clothes, and he ate Twinkies and canned fruit. He started to doubt his decision to take the perilous trip.

"I was nervous, scared," he said. "Why am I here? Why am I doing this?"

After three days, the group arrived at a small Arizona town. They hid inside a house to wait out a police patrol that apparently had been tipped off about their arrival.

Miguel then took Mr. Vielma and his two Paradise friends to Los Angeles to meet his aunt.

Finding work in southern California proved to be a challenge. The area already had a huge immigrant population, and competition was fierce. Mr. Vielma briefly unloaded trucks for department stores.

A Mexican friend living in Pittsburgh told him that good restaurant jobs were plentiful in the region. He and his two companions decided to make another big move. In November 2003, they arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Mr. Vielma eventually started working at Bahama Breeze in Robinson. After six months he became a cook there, earning $11.50 an hour.

He also met Ms.Luchuck, a waitress at the restaurant who spoke some Spanish from high school. After a going away party for Refugio Ramirez -- who had to return to Acapulco to care for his ailing mother -- Ms. Luchuck gave Mr. Vielma her number.

He took a week to call her for the first time, but they soon started seeing each other frequently. Ms. Luchuck requested that her days off coincide with Mr. Vielma's. She regularly went to watch him play soccer on Pittsburgh's North Side. She helped him build his first snowman.

After several dates, Mr. Vielma admitted that he was in the country illegally. Ms. Luchuck said she still wanted to be with him.

"I wasn't happy how he got here," she said, "but I was really glad he was here."

After a raid in Robinson in 2006 netted several undocumented immigrants, Mr. Vielma decided to move.

He and Ms. Luchucuk moved into a South Fayette apartment.

Ms. Luchuck then traveled to Acapulco on her own to meet Mr. Vielma's family. Mr. Vielma started practicing his English. He cut his thick black hair and removed his earrings.

The couple started talking about marriage.

The unraveling happened on July 30, two weeks before their planned wedding at Phipps Conservatory. Mr. Vielma's older brother, Alberto, who had come to the United States illegally more than a year earlier, was accused of shoplifting at the Kohl's department store in Robinson. He tried to tell a security guard that he was just looking for a box for a pair of shoes on display.

But, with his limited English, he couldn't communicate, so he called his brother. By the time Eduardo Vielma arrived, four Robinson police officers were on the scene.

One officer called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and put both men on the phone with an agent. They admitted to being in the country without visas.

"I told them the truth," Eduardo Vielma said. "I can't lie."

He also told the officers of his coming wedding, and he said several were willing to let him go. Only his brother had been accused of a crime, and local police departments generally are not empowered to enforce federal immigration laws.

"But he's illegal," one officer said, according to Mr. Vielma. They handcuffed him and his brother and took them to the Robinson police station.

Mr. Vielma would spend the next month and a half in three different jails, moving from Allegheny County to Cambria County to York County.

His brother was taken to a detention facility in Texas. The Allegheny County District Attorney's office later dropped the shoplifting charges against him.

Meanwhile, a judge allowed Eduardo Vielma to go free after Ms. Luchuck borrowed $5,000 from her grandmother to cover bail. She met him at the York County Prison on Sept. 11.

"I was just so happy that he was right in front of me," she said. "I could reach out and give him a hug. I didn't have to worry about glass or bars."

They decided to go ahead with their marriage. At their Nov. 1 wedding at Phipps Conservatory, Ms. Luchuck said her vows in Spanish, while Mr. Vielma said them in English.

On Nov. 24, the Monday before Thanksgiving, Mr. Vielma went to Pittsburgh International Airport and voluntarily left the United States. He was one of 5,530 immigrants deported from the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia in 2008, according to ICE figures.

Ms. Luchuck hugged him and quickly got back in her car.

"I didn't want to drag it out, because I knew I was going to be a wreck."

On his first day back in Acapulco, Mr. Vielma went to the U.S. consulate to prove that he had returned home. His parents moved into the kitchen to make room for him.

He then went back to Paradise.

The restaurant had vastly expanded to cater to the "spring break" crowd, with a 160-foot bungee jumping tower, a waterfall and dozens of dining tables beneath a palm-covered roof. On weekends, there are wet T-shirt contests and all-night dance parties.

But business is down as much as 50 percent from last year.

On a Wednesday night last month, when there were few customers, Mr. Vielma sat briefly with a pair of blond sisters from St. Louis. He took out a wallet-sized picture of his wife, with dark hair, a black dress and her head facing sideways. One girl asked about his time in jail.

"It was a nightmare to be in that place," Mr. Vielma later said. "What if I never get out? What if I never see Melody again?"

He's considering another journey north. This time, however, Mr. Vielma wants to do it the right way.

He now faces a 10-year ban on re-entry into the United States, but he and Ms. Luchuck plan to apply for a "family hardship waiver" that could cut the wait down to less than two years. The process will cost as much as $5,000, said Jacqueline Martinez, a Pittsburgh immigration attorney who is representing the couple.

Another option is to work in Canada, and Mr. Vielma is awaiting an English test that would enable him to get a visa. Ms. Luchuck, too, has thought about moving. But their first choice is Pittsburgh.

"I want to start a family, get a real job there," Mr. Vielma said. "I got so used to Pittsburgh. I just want to live there. Why do I have to go to Mexico when I have everything there?"