Undocumented immigration across the Mediterranean and the US-Mexican border is one of the most contested transatlantic public and political issues, raising fundamental questions about national identity, security and multiculturalism—all in the glare of news media themselves undergoing dramatic transformations. This interdisciplinary, international volume fills a major gap in political science and communication literature on the role of news media in public debates over immigration by providing unique insider’s perspectives on journalistic practices and bringing them into dialogue with scholars and immigrant rights practitioners. After providing original comparative research by established and emerging international affairs and media scholars as well as grounded reflections by UN and IOM practitioners, the book presents candid, in-depth assessments by nine leading European and North American journalists covering immigration from the frontlines, ranging from the Guardian’s Southern Europe editor to the immigration reporter for the Arizona Republic. Their comparative reflections on the professional, institutional and technological constraints shaping news stories offer unprecedented insight into the challenges and opportunities for 21st century journalism to affect public discourse and policymaking about issues critical to the future of the transatlantic space, making the book relevant across a wide range of scholarship on the media’s impact on public affairs.
In her Brookings Essay, The Wall, Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown explains the true costs of building a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, including (but not limited to) the estimated $12 to $21.6 billion price tag of construction. Felbab-Brown explains the importance of the United States' relationship with Mexico, on which the U.S. relies for cooperation on security, environmental, agricultural, water-sharing, trade, and drug smuggling issues. The author uses her extensive on-the-ground experience in Mexico to illustrate the environmental and community disruption that the construction of a wall would cause, while arguing that the barrier would do nothing to stop illicit flows into the United States. She recalls personal interviews she has had with people living in border areas, including a woman whose family relies on remittances from the U.S., a teenager trying to get out of a local gang, and others.
From one of America's most prominent philanthropists, an eye-opening, myth-busting new perspective on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Howard G. Buffett has seen first-hand the devastating impact of cheap Mexican heroin and other opiate cocktails across America. Fueled by failing border policies and lawlessness in Mexico and Central America, drugs are pouring over the nation's southern border in record quantities, turning Americans into addicts and migrants into drug mules -- and killing us in record numbers. Politicians talk about a border crisis and an opioid crisis as separate issues. To Buffett, a landowner on the U.S. border with Mexico and now a sheriff in Illinois, these are intimately connected. Ineffective border policies not only put residents in border states like Texas and Arizona in harm's way, they put American lives in states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont at risk. Mexican cartels have grown astonishingly powerful by exploiting both the gaps in our border security strategy and the desperation of migrants -- all while profiting enormously off America's growing addiction to drugs. The solution isn't a wall. In this groundbreaking book, Buffett outlines a realistic, effective, and bi-partisan approach to fighting cartels, strengthening our national security, and tackling the roots of the chaos below the border.
Two New York Times Washington correspondents provide a detailed, “fact-based account of what precipitated some of this administration’s more brazen assaults on immigration” (The Washington Post) filled with never-before-told stories of this key issue of Donald Trump’s presidency. No issue matters more to Donald Trump and his administration than restricting immigration. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear have covered the Trump administration from its earliest days. In Border Wars, they take us inside the White House to document how Stephen Miller and other anti-immigration officials blocked asylum-seekers and refugees, separated families, threatened deportation, and sought to erode the longstanding bipartisan consensus that immigration and immigrants make positive contributions to America. Their revelation of Trump’s desire for a border moat filled with alligators made national news. As the authors reveal, Trump has used immigration to stoke fears (“the caravan”), attack Democrats and the courts, and distract from negative news and political difficulties. As he seeks reelection in 2020, Trump has elevated immigration in the imaginations of many Americans into a national crisis. Border Wars identifies the players behind Trump’s anti-immigration policies, showing how they planned, stumbled and fought their way toward changes that have further polarized the nation. “[Davis and Shear’s] exquisitely reported Border Wars reveals the shattering horror of the moment, [and] the mercurial unreliability and instability of the president” (The New York Times Book Review).
This occasional paper is a concise overview of the history of the US Army's involvement along the Mexican border and offers a fundamental understanding of problems associated with such a mission. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the historic themes addressed disapproving public reaction, Mexican governmental instability, and insufficient US military personnel to effectively secure the expansive boundary are still prevalent today.
"In his scathing and deeply reported examination of the U.S. Border Patrol, Todd Miller argues that the agency has gone rogue since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, trampling on the dignity and rights of the undocumented with military-style tactics … Miller's book arrives at a moment when it appears that part of the Homeland Security apparatus is backpedaling by promising to tone down its tactics, maybe prodded by investigative journalism, maybe by the revelations of NSA leaker Edward Snowden … Border Patrol is quite possibly the right book at the right time … "—Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times "At the start of his unsettling and important new book, Border Patrol Nation, Miller observes that these days 'it is common to see the Border Patrol in places—such as Erie, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; or Forks, Washington—where only fifteen years ago it would have seemed far-fetched, if not unfathomable.'”—Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor "Miller’s approach in Border Patrol Nation is to offer a glimpse into the secretive operations of the Border Patrol, reporting with a journalist’s objectivity and nose for a good story. Miller’s book is full of facts, and it’s clear he’s outraged, but he gives voices to people on every side of the issue … Miller’s book is a fascinating read … and bring the work of Susan Orlean to mind."—Amanda Eyre Ward, Kirkus Reviews "Todd Miller's invaluable and gripping book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security is the story of how this country’s borders are being transformed into up-armored, heavily militarized zones run by a border-industrial complex. It's an achievement and an eye opener."—Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch "What Jeremy Scahill was to Blackwater, Todd Miller is to the U.S. Border Patrol!"—Tom Miller, author, On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier "Todd Miller has entered a secret world, and he has gone deep … Powerful."—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway: A True Story "Journalist Miller tells an alarming story of U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security's ever-widening reach into the lives of American citizens and legal immigrants as well as the undocumented. In addition to readers interested in immigration issues, those concerned about the NSA’s privacy violations will likely be even more shocked by the actions of Homeland Security."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Armed authorities watch from a military-grade surveillance tower as lines of people stream toward the security checkpoint, tickets in hand, anxious and excited to get through the gate. Few seem to notice or care that the US Border Patrol is monitoring the Super Bowl, as they have for years, one of the many ways that forces created to police the borders are now being used, in an increasingly militarized fashion, to survey and monitor the whole of American society. In fast-paced prose, Todd Miller sounds an alarm as he chronicles the changing landscape. Traveling the country—and beyond—to speak with the people most involved with and impacted by the Border Patrol, he combines these first-hand encounters with careful research to expose a vast and booming industry for high-end technology, weapons, surveillance, and prisons. While politicians and corporations reap substantial profits, the experiences of millions of men, women, and children point to staggering humanitarian consequences. Border Patrol Nation shows us in stark relief how the entire country has become a militarized border zone, with consequences that affect us all. Todd Miller has worked on and written about US border issues for over fifteen years.
"Michelle Malkin’s latest book is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the forces and interests behind the open borders and mass migration lobby." —Pawel Styrna, ImmigrationReform.com Follow the money, find the truth. That’s Michelle Malkin’s journalistic mantra, and in her stunning new book, Open Borders Inc., she puts it to work with a shocking, comprehensive exposé of who’s behind our immigration crisis. In the name of compassion—but driven by financial profit—globalist elites, Silicon Valley, and the radical Left are conspiring to undo the rule of law, subvert our homeland security, shut down free speech, and make gobs of money off the backs of illegal aliens, refugees, and low-wage guest workers. Politicians want cheap votes or cheap labor. Church leaders want pew-fillers and collection plate donors. Social justice militants, working with corporate America, want to silence free speech they deem “hateful,” while raking in tens of millions of dollars promoting mass, uncontrolled immigration both legal and illegal. Malkin names names—from Pope Francis to George Clooney, from George Soros to the Koch brothers, from Jack Dorsey to Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg. Enlightening as it is infuriating, Open Borders Inc. reveals the powerful forces working to erase America.
The United States is outsourcing its border patrol abroad—and essentially expanding its borders in the process The twenty-first century has witnessed the rapid hardening of international borders. Security, surveillance, and militarization are widening the chasm between those who travel where they please and those whose movements are restricted. But that is only part of the story. As journalist Todd Miller reveals in Empire of Borders, the nature of US borders has changed. These boundaries have effectively expanded thousands of miles outside of US territory to encircle not simply American land but Washington’s interests. Resources, training, and agents from the United States infiltrate the Caribbean and Central America; they reach across the Canadian border; and they go even farther afield, enforcing the division between Global South and North. The highly publicized focus on a wall between the United States and Mexico misses the bigger picture of strengthening border enforcement around the world. Empire of Borders is a tremendous work of narrative investigative journalism that traces the rise of this border regime. It delves into the practices of “extreme vetting,” which raise the possibility of “ideological” tests and cyber-policing for migrants and visitors, a level of scrutiny that threatens fundamental freedoms and allows, once again, for America’s security concerns to infringe upon the sovereign rights of other nations. In Syria, Guatemala, Kenya, Palestine, Mexico, the Philippines, and elsewhere, Miller finds that borders aren’t making the world safe—they are the frontline in a global war against the poor.
Thoughtful investigative report about a central issue of the 2008 presidential race that examines the border in human terms through a cast of colorful characters. Asks and answers the core questions: Should we close the border? Is a fence or wall the answer? Is the U.S. government capable of fully securing the border? Reviews the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects and discusses NAFTA, immigration policy, border security, and other local, regional, national, and international issues.
