Twenty million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1990 and 2010, in an ongoing wave of immigration comparable to the peak years of Ellis Island. In response, there has been a historically similar rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and border control legislation. In Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire, Arizona journalist Margaret Regan (The Death of Josseline) reports on the enormous and growing border and immigration enforcement system, through the personal experiences of immigrants from Central and South America and of their family members, employers, friends and advocates.
Regan states that at the beginning of the 21st century, immigrants are more likely to have lived and worked in the U.S. for many years and, if the parents are deported, to have young children placed in foster care or adopted. With their roots and close family in the U.S. rather than in their legal country of origin, deportees are willing to take extreme risks to return. Regan is a persistent and sensitive interviewer, and her long experience reporting on these issues deeply informs her narrative as she investigates detention centers, courts, shelters and late-night bus stations, interviewing a variety of immigrants, pro bono lawyers, community volunteers and Mexican repatriation workers. She makes a strong argument that, as of 2015, the immigrant detention system is not only inhumane but also corrupt and ineffective: a gold mine for private contractors, a waste of millions in taxpayer dollars and destructive to families in ways that seem likely to breed future social and economic costs. --Sara Catterall