The Battle to Stay in America: Immigration's Hidden Front Line

by Michael Kagan

2020 Foreword INDIE awards winner

"Day-to-day life in immigrant communities is described with refreshing clarity and heart... an unusually accessible primer on immigration law and a valuable guide to the ways it currently works to perpetuate an excluded immigrant underclass with diminished rights."
— The   New York Review of Books

The national debate over American immigration policy has obsessed politicians and disrupted the lives of millions of people for decades. The Battle to Stay in America focuses on Las Vegas, Nevada–a city where more than one in five residents was born in a foreign country, and where the community is struggling to defend itself against the federal government’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Told through the eyes of an immigration lawyer on the front lines of that battle, this book offers an accessible, intensely personal introduction to a broken legal system. It is also a raw, honest story of exhaustion, perseverance, and solidarity. Michael Kagan describes how current immigration law affects real people’s lives and introduces us to some remarkable individuals—immigrants and activists—who grapple with its complications every day. He explains how American immigration law often gives good people no recourse. He shows how under President Trump the complex bureaucracies that administer immigration law have been re-engineered to carry out a relentless but often invisible attack against people and families who are integral to American communities.

Kagan tells the stories of people desperate to escape unspeakable violence in their homeland, children separated from their families and trapped in a tangle of administrative regulations, and hardworking long-time residents suddenly ripped from their productive lives when they fall unwittingly into the clutches of the immigration enforcement system. He considers how the crackdown on immigrants negatively impacts the national economy and offers a deeply considered assessment of the future of immigration policy in the United States. Kagan also captures the psychological costs exacted by fear of deportation and by increasingly overt expressions of hatred against immigrants.  
 

216 pages, Hardcover

Published August 11, 2020

About the author

Michael Kagan is the Joyce Mack Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is the director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, which defends children and families fighting deportation in Las Vegas. He has lived in Las Vegas, the setting for The Battle to Stay in America, since 2011.
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Kagan began working with refugees in Cairo, Egypt, in 1998, while he was still in law school. He spent the first decade of his career building legal aid programs for refugees throughout the Middle East and Asia, and lived in London, Cairo, Beirut and Jerusalem.

In 2019, Kagan was a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits that prevented the Trump administration from including a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census.
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He has written for The Washington Post, Salon.com, and The Daily Beast and is a leading national scholar of immigration and refugee law. The Battle to Stay in America is his first book.

Reviews

[Jaidee · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and University of Nevada Press. This was released August 2020. I am providing a brief guarded review.

Interesting case studies as to how "illegal" immigration manifests in Las Vegas and his honest opinions in many matters pertaining to immigration law and deportation practice. Well meaning but I will not finish and I stopped at 65 percent....I will say no more. This was written during Trump's first term in 2019.

Written by an immigration lawyer and professor.

Very cool cover too....

I will not be engaging in any political conversation on these matters but simply say that we must try to treat each other compassionately and with grace despite these polarizing and very disrespectful times.

[Jane Olmsted · Rating 5 out of 5]

I assigned Kagan's book for a Citizenship & Social Justice class, one of three fairly short books that would allow my students to get into a topic more deeply than a collection of short essays (though we use those as well) or textbook. "Battle to Stay in America" has been one of the most successful texts I've ever used, and for the reason that others have offered here. It is accessible, personal, and rich with information. Students feel empowered and informed yet in a way that goes deeper than a textbook could, on the topic of immigration. They were shocked and moved as they read about the real people affected by our confusing and unjust immigration system. I invited Kagan to zoom with my two classes, and he did that graciously. You don't need him to come to class, though, as his book, which I think of as part-memoir, part-non-fiction analysis, is so compelling. What better way to introduce students to this complicated yet so important aspect of our culture? The book divides neatly into three (one section per week) and traces a handful of people whose lives are entwined with our immigration/deportation policies. One question students had was, "how are they doing today?" Kagan hopes another edition or update will give him the opportunity to share that and then told us that one of the mothers has since died from covid--he wrote about her in an online tribute. It's so important that people see policies as more than words on a page or actions somewhere over there, that real people with deep roots in their American communities and with a lot to offer need the rest of us to know what's going so we can support them, and so we can learn from them.

[Steven Volk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent short introduction to immigration law told through his own experience as a law professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and director of his Immigration Clinic. I would really recommend this as reading for anyone who wants to know why the current immigration "system" is broken, what it means for actual people, and how Trump torqued this "machinery of cruelty" up to its current, almost unimaginable, level. Does a good job of dispelling the myths about immigration that can be used to talk with people who are still open to having a civil discussion.

[Sofie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so interesting. I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it wasn't for a class, but I am so glad I did. It is such an accessible introduction to US immigration and all of the misconceptions people have in regards to immigration. The statistics and policies were woven with narratives of actual undocumented immigrants living in Las Vegas that made it so much easier to understand and empathize with. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about immigration in the United States and how it has changed throughout administrations.

[Lisa Loder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Kagan makes immigration law interesting and informative . There are multiple descriptions of real life people trying to better their lives after leaving abhorrent conditions. They are then forced to deal with a system in this country that challenges them with outdated laws and incomprehensible forms. We all need to be more aware of what has happened when it comes to immigration, especially for Hispanic populations.

[Lineal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very informative! A great starting point for anyone wishing to understand the failure of the "immigration" system in the US.
Narrative parts and statistical analysis and well-balanced. It's also not too bleak, providing the reader with many examples of resistance, despite not shying away from sharing how demoralizing immigration law is. The one minor flaw is that the writing isn't as great as it could be. One more round of edits would have polished it.

[Lynn Tramonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging read, explains current immigration policy and implementation through real-life stories. Irreverent, authentic, informative, and a quick read. Highly recommended!

[Mills College Library]

342.73082 K119 2020