No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants

by Alina Das

A provocative account of the long, racist history of our immigration system, revealing how it has become the brutal machine that today upends the lives of millions of immigrants
Each year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people are arrested, imprisoned, and deported, trapped in what leading immigrant rights activist and lawyer Alina Das calls the "deportation machine." The bulk of the arrests target people who have a criminal record--so-called "criminal aliens"--the majority of whose offenses are immigration-, drug-, or traffic-related. These individuals are uprooted from their homes, their families, and their communities, and banished.
Through the stories of those caught in the system, Das traces the ugly history of immigration policy to explain how the US constructed the idea of the "criminal alien," effectively dividing immigrants into the categories "good" and "bad," "deserving" and "undeserving." As Das argues, we need to confront the cruelty of the machine so that we can build an inclusive immigration policy premised on human dignity and break the cycle once and for all.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Law, Anti Racist

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 14, 2020

Reviews

[Mariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siempre he sabido que el sistema de inmigración en los EU tiene problemas (por decir lo menos), pero no sabía de cual magnitud. Un libro crítico, informativo y humano.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, important book about how the U.S. immigration system has been tied to our criminalization system, and the lack of justice this affords for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. I admit I thought that it was fine to prioritize resources and funding to deport "criminal aliens," as our laws call immigrants with a criminal history, but Alina Das convinced me through her compassionate, reasoned argument how this often leaves people who have 1) been unfairly targeted as criminals, as we know happens so often to people of color in the U.S. criminalization system, or 2) people who have made a mistake, paid their dues, and have since reformed their lives, without any choices or chances to stay in the country they have made their lives and families in, contributing to it so often in so many ways. Deportation is cruel and unusual punishment, and we need to stop separating immigrants into false camps of "good" and "bad." All immigrants, whether or not they have had a run-in with the law, deserve a chance to turn their lives around, deserve justice and compassion.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took a while to get through this book. The personal stories are heartbreaking. So much so that I can hardly believe we don’t learn about the immigration system in grade school; the series of racist policies that allows our country to criminalize and punish SURVIVORS who enter the US after fleeing abuse, danger, oppression, etc. “Criminalizing migration was racist back in 1929 when it was initially placed on the books. It remains racist today. It enables a system of discriminatory and harsh prosecutions that fuel our system of mass incarceration even as we recognize the time has come to end it.”

[Sara Broad · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No Justice in the Shadows" by Alina Das is about the history of how America has criminalized immigrants and how we continue to so in current times. This book reinforces the point that we our systems of immigration and mass incarceration upend lives, create chaos, violate human rights, and misuse taxpayer dollars. "No Justice" is an important read about how immigrants must live in the shadows or are placed in the shadows because of criminal records.

[Jolene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das offers a brilliant, clear, and illuminating argument for legal reform of the immigration system. Just like Michelle Alexander and Bryan Stevenson brought light to the injustice of the mass incarceration and death row systems, Das exposes the flaws of the deportation machine.

A must-read for legal scholars, immigration advocates and concerned citizens!

[Mihir Mehta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really difficult read - it took me several months to finish TBH - but such, such an important one. In addition to the harrowing stories that add context to the policy discussions, this book made the connection between hostility to freed slaves and the modern immigration system clearer than anything else I've come across.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone who wants to understand how immigration laws in the US work in reality. Great integration of stories and history with enough detail for the lawyers out there as well without making it inaccessible.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good, so full of mind boggling and infuriating information about our absolutely inhumane immigration policies. Definitely a lot of facts and figures but also a lot of gripping and eye opening stories of real people.

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

Throw the whole goddamn government into the toilet and flush it.
You need to take a breather every now and then or you'll rage at the state of the system while reading this.

[Gioia Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

really just, abolish ICE

[Katherine Niall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and timely!

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Similar to Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow But Focusing On Immigration. This book directly references Alexander's work at a couple of points and is told in a similar style and with similar strengths and weaknesses. Namely, it builds a well documented case, but uses more anecdotal "evidence" as its primary narrative structure. I rate it slightly above Alexander's work because it doesn't have quite as glaring a blindspot as that other work. Specifically, while Alexander's work regarded race above all other factors, Das' work here shows the truly wide scope of immigration control in the US, from its earliest days working as much against Europeans as anyone to its more modern incarnations targeting first Chinese and other Asians to the fairly ubiquitous in current regimes of pretty well everyone. By and large, how you feel about Alexander's work will mirror how you feel about Das', and that isn't necessarily a bad thing for Das' pocketbook since Alexander's work is so often discussed and cited even so many years after publication. Recommended.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good explanation of how ICE and DHS was being weaponized against immigrants leading up till 2020. If you somehow hadn't heard of this before now, congratulations, with everything going on in the hellscape of 2025 you should really fucking inform yourself. It's all gotten worse since then too! It's not real great! Get informed and stand up for your neighbors.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

RWC 2021 #23 - Nonfiction Book Focused on Social Justice

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real and depressing look at how immigrants are treated in this country and the work of those who are fighting to protect them.