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The Deporter: One Agent's Struggle Against the U.S. Government's Refusal to Expel Criminal Aliens
“We have an immigration crisis in our country, all right, and it is a good deal more demonstrably wrong than the millions of illegal immigrants in the shadows. It is costlier to the fabric of American life than the September 11 attacks were. Illogical, deadly, ruinous. Yet none of our leaders is raising a finger to stop it. On the contrary, it is our leaders who drive the destruction.”
—Ames Holbrook, from The Deporter
The true story of a dedicated deportation officer and his exposé of the worst aspects of U.S. immigration policy
As one of fewer than six hundred elite Deportation Officers in the country, Ames Holbrook was assigned to the criminal mecca of New Orleans. He was charged with capturing and expelling some of the most wretched murderers, rapists, and child molesters who were aliens in the United States.
But Holbrook was thwarted at nearly every turn…by the same U.S. government that employed him. Why? The reasons will shock and infuriate you.
In the course of his compelling story, you will read the truth about how foreign governments treat the United States when agents such as Holbrook try to send criminal aliens back to their homelands. And, even more appalling, how Washington’s political hypocrisy forces the direct release of these criminals into unsuspecting American communities.
Like every U.S. Deportation Officer, Ames Holbrook tried to make America safer. Then, when America’s leadership threatened the welfare of innocents, Holbrook rewrote the rules. He won commendations and increased responsibility for his promising results, but all the while, he was fighting a losing battle against the political powers that masqueraded as protectors while actually inflicting tragedy on America’s residents.
It is Holbrook’s hope that the revelations in these pages might put America on a path to a safer future.
—Ames Holbrook, from The Deporter
The true story of a dedicated deportation officer and his exposé of the worst aspects of U.S. immigration policy
As one of fewer than six hundred elite Deportation Officers in the country, Ames Holbrook was assigned to the criminal mecca of New Orleans. He was charged with capturing and expelling some of the most wretched murderers, rapists, and child molesters who were aliens in the United States.
But Holbrook was thwarted at nearly every turn…by the same U.S. government that employed him. Why? The reasons will shock and infuriate you.
In the course of his compelling story, you will read the truth about how foreign governments treat the United States when agents such as Holbrook try to send criminal aliens back to their homelands. And, even more appalling, how Washington’s political hypocrisy forces the direct release of these criminals into unsuspecting American communities.
Like every U.S. Deportation Officer, Ames Holbrook tried to make America safer. Then, when America’s leadership threatened the welfare of innocents, Holbrook rewrote the rules. He won commendations and increased responsibility for his promising results, but all the while, he was fighting a losing battle against the political powers that masqueraded as protectors while actually inflicting tragedy on America’s residents.
It is Holbrook’s hope that the revelations in these pages might put America on a path to a safer future.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2007
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About the author
Ames Holbrook
2 books4 followersAmes Holbrook won the University of Hawaii Writing Award and picked up his Creative Writing degree with honors that same semester, but he wound up carrying a gun and doing dangerous jobs anyway.
Ames is an Army veteran, a former federal law enforcement officer, and a current Homeland Security writer who has appeared on over 50 TV and radio shows to discuss his acclaimed books, including DISCHARGE, his masterpiece road memoir about his own harrowing struggle to become a civilian even as the Pentagon fights to pull him back in.
Ames is an Army veteran, a former federal law enforcement officer, and a current Homeland Security writer who has appeared on over 50 TV and radio shows to discuss his acclaimed books, including DISCHARGE, his masterpiece road memoir about his own harrowing struggle to become a civilian even as the Pentagon fights to pull him back in.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 20, 2009
Having left his government job to pursue other ventures, in this memoir Ames Holbrook looks back on his time as a Detention and Deportation Office in the agency now known as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. He uses this memoir to share what he has learned from his time on he job, and to reveal the glaring inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the government's efforts to deport criminal aliens. I feel compelled to emphasize that Holbrook focuses on criminal aliens: the people he deports are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, pedophile sex-offenders, and worse. Many of them are repeat offenders. And every day, the government is leaking these people out of detention and back onto the American streets.
This book is intended to incite outrage, but I think you'd have to be somewhat of an insider already for a lot of the government's foibles to make sense. Naturally we don't want criminals on the street -- but the red-tape holding up the deportation process and sabotaging counter-terrorism efforts isn't fully explained in this memoir. Of course, once you've been on the inside as long as Holbrook was, it may be hard to talk to the general public.
On the other hand, what really surprised me about this book was the prose. I had expected laborious government-ese -- facts and figures and really dry writing -- but the memoir reads quite like a novel in places. Check out this gem: "An incendiary mood brewed in him, and his face grew rosy in the bracket of his beard" (p. 31). Such elegant prose does make me wonder about the strict veracity of the account, but at least it makes for a more enjoyable read along the way.
Overall, it's definitely a worthwhile read. It doesn't cast our government in a particularly positive light, but I don't think that any of the claims are exaggerated or even unfair. That said, brace yourself for an angsty and rocky text, and one that has the potential to be mind-blowingly revealing.
This book is intended to incite outrage, but I think you'd have to be somewhat of an insider already for a lot of the government's foibles to make sense. Naturally we don't want criminals on the street -- but the red-tape holding up the deportation process and sabotaging counter-terrorism efforts isn't fully explained in this memoir. Of course, once you've been on the inside as long as Holbrook was, it may be hard to talk to the general public.
On the other hand, what really surprised me about this book was the prose. I had expected laborious government-ese -- facts and figures and really dry writing -- but the memoir reads quite like a novel in places. Check out this gem: "An incendiary mood brewed in him, and his face grew rosy in the bracket of his beard" (p. 31). Such elegant prose does make me wonder about the strict veracity of the account, but at least it makes for a more enjoyable read along the way.
Overall, it's definitely a worthwhile read. It doesn't cast our government in a particularly positive light, but I don't think that any of the claims are exaggerated or even unfair. That said, brace yourself for an angsty and rocky text, and one that has the potential to be mind-blowingly revealing.
February 6, 2021
The Deporter
by Ames Holbrook
This is an important book, which needs to be widely read. If you’ve already read Holbrook’s “Discharge”, well this isn’t the same kind of party. Here the author relates the absolutely true absurdity of our nation’s immigration policy. Relax! This is no right-wing anti-immigration screed. Ames has nothing against immigrants, in general, nor do I... it’s the subset who are already criminals before they illegally enter the US, or have little reservation about criminal behavior after arrival. Not talking about petty theft, here, either. Murderers. Rapists. Pedophiles. People who would, literally, gouge your eye out, for standing in front of the TV. These are the folks Holbrook spent years rounding up, incarcerating, and deporting... when our government didn’t order them released, before he could get the paperwork completed. It’s an infuriating read. You’ll feel the author’s frustration... perhaps you’ll be shocked at how he deals with the problem, but you won’t question his motivation.
“Discharge” was a riot; I literally couldn’t put it down. This one isn’t as easy, but if you’d only have the chance to read one of the two, read this one. It may inform your vote, somewhere down the line...
December 11, 2018
The movie i pretty much well
June 17, 2008
If you want to read one man's perspective about INS and why politicians are talking out of their rears when they claim they are going to deport lawbreaking aliens, read this book.
April 29, 2020
Great insight into our nations inability to expel foriegn criminals...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews