A day after José Ángel N. first crossed the United States border from Mexico, he was caught and then released onto the streets of Tijuana. Undeterred, N. crawled back through a tunnel to San Diego, where he entered the United States to stay. Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant is his timely and compelling memoir of building a new life in America. Arriving in the 1990s with a ninth grade education, N. traveled to Chicago where he found access to ESL and GED classes. He eventually attended college and graduate school and became a professional translator. Despite having a well-paying job, N. was isolated by a lack of legal documentation. Travel concerns made promotions impossible. The simple act of purchasing his girlfriend a beer at a Cubs baseball game caused embarrassment and shame when N. couldn't produce a valid ID. A frustrating contradiction, N. lived in a luxury high-rise condo but couldn't fully live the American dream. He did, however, find solace in the one gift America gave him–-his education. Ultimately, N.'s is the story of the triumph of education over adversity. In Illegal, he debunks the stereotype that undocumented immigrants are freeloaders without access to education or opportunity for advancement. With bravery and honesty, N. details the constraints, deceptions, and humiliations that characterize alien life "amid the shadows."

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s—its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

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A damning indictment of US complicity in supporting Central American regimes that have committed atrocities against their indigenous Indian populations, with a particular focus on Guatemala It has been called "a silent holocaust": From 1960 to 1996, a genocidal campaign against the indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala was waged by authoritarian right-wing governments, yet the world at large paid little attention. Most Americans know next to nothing about this human-rights outrage, even though their tax dollars have been used to support the brutal Guatemalan regimes that committed the atrocities. For decades successive administrations have acted as enablers, trainers, funders, and suppliers to the murderers. This book documents this tragic Guatemalan history, revealing that Guatemala is a particularly hideous example of similar abuses in Central America also supported by US advisors, military training, and financial support. The author, a humanitarian aid worker and activist, points out that much of today's immigration controversy has been exacerbated by misguided US meddling in the internal affairs of Central American countries. The justifications for this interference range from drug interdiction and stemming the tide of unauthorized immigration to the threat of terrorism.The result has been untold suffering on the part of this region's poorest people and desperate attempts to flee their native countries, creating refugee controversies not only for the US but for Mexico as well. The author concludes by noting that Guatemala succeeded in establishing a national genocide trial in 2013, which found former US-backed President Efrain Rios Montt guilty; however, the verdict was later annulled. But protesters in Guatemala continue to demand the ouster of top government officials over corruption charges. This book is a plea for Americans to demand a similar accounting and to protest our government's support of this repressive regime and others like it in Central America.

New research reveals why America can no longer afford mass immigration Mark Krikorian has studied the trends and concluded that America must permanently reduce immigration— both legal and illegal—or face enormous problems in the near future. His argument is based on facts, not fear. Wherever they come from, today’s immigrants are actually very similar to those who arrived a century ago. But they are coming to a very different America—one where changes in the economy, society, and government create different incentives for newcomers. Before the upheavals of the 1960s, the U.S. expected its immigrants—from Italy to India—to earn a living, learn English, and become patriotic Americans. But the rise of identity politics, political correctness, and Great Society programs means we no longer make these demands. In short, the problem isn’t them, it’s us. Even positive developments such as technological progress hinder the assimilation of immigrants. It’s easy now for newcomers to live “transnational” lives. Immigration will be in the headlines through Election Day and beyond, and this controversial book will help drive the debate.

In the 1920s, the US government passed legislation against undocumented entry into the country, and as a result the figure of the “illegal alien” took form in the national discourse. In this book, Lisa A. Flores explores the history of our language about Mexican immigrants and exposes how our words made these migrants “illegal.” Deportable and Disposable brings a rhetorical lens to a question that has predominantly concerned historians: how do differently situated immigrant populations come to belong within the national space of whiteness, and thus of American-ness? Flores presents a genealogy of our immigration discourse through four stereotypes: the “illegal alien,” a foreigner and criminal who quickly became associated with Mexican migrants; the “bracero,” a docile Mexican contract laborer; the “zoot suiter,” a delinquent Mexican American youth engaged in gang culture; and the “wetback,” an unwanted migrant who entered the country by swimming across the Rio Grande. By showing how these figures were constructed, Flores provides insight into the ways in which we racialize language and how we can transform our political rhetoric to ensure immigrant populations come to belong as part of the country, as Americans. Timely, thoughtful, and eye-opening, Deportable and Disposable initiates a necessary conversation about the relationship between racial rhetoric and the literal and figurative borders of the nation. This powerful book will inform policy makers, scholars, activists, and anyone else interested in race, rhetoric, and immigration in the United States.

A political scientist explains how the American immigration system ran off the rails -- and proposes a bold plan for reform Under the Trump administration, US immigration agencies terrorize the undocumented, target people who are here legally, and even threaten the constitutional rights of American citizens. How did we get to this point? In Illegal, Elizabeth F. Cohen reveals that our current crisis has roots in early twentieth century white nationalist politics, which began to reemerge in the 1980s. Since then, ICE and CBP have acquired bigger budgets and more power than any other law enforcement agency. Now, Trump has unleashed them. If we want to reverse the rising tide of abuse, Cohen argues that we must act quickly to rein in the powers of the current immigration regime and revive saner approaches based on existing law. Going beyond the headlines, Illegal makes clear that if we don't act now all of us, citizen and not, are at risk.