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The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands
Dispatches from Arizona—the front line of a massive human migration—including the voices of migrants, Border Patrol, ranchers, activists, and others
For the last decade, Margaret Regan has reported on the escalating chaos along the Arizona-Mexico border, ground zero for immigration since 2000. Undocumented migrants cross into Arizona in overwhelming numbers, a state whose anti-immigrant laws are the most stringent in the nation. And Arizona has the highest number of migrant deaths. Fourteen-year-old Josseline, a young girl from El Salvador who was left to die alone on the migrant trail, was just one of thousands to perish in its deserts and mountains.
With a sweeping perspective and vivid on-the-ground reportage, Regan tells the stories of the people caught up in this international tragedy. Traveling back and forth across the border, she visits migrants stranded in Mexican shelters and rides shotgun with Border Patrol agents in Arizona, hiking with them for hours in the scorching desert; she camps out in the thorny wilderness with No More Deaths activists and meets with angry ranchers and vigilantes. Using Arizona as a microcosm, Regan explores a host of urgent the border militarization that threatens the rights of U.S. citizens, the environmental damage wrought by the border wall, the desperation that compels migrants to come north, and the human tragedy of the unidentified dead in Arizona’s morgues.
For the last decade, Margaret Regan has reported on the escalating chaos along the Arizona-Mexico border, ground zero for immigration since 2000. Undocumented migrants cross into Arizona in overwhelming numbers, a state whose anti-immigrant laws are the most stringent in the nation. And Arizona has the highest number of migrant deaths. Fourteen-year-old Josseline, a young girl from El Salvador who was left to die alone on the migrant trail, was just one of thousands to perish in its deserts and mountains.
With a sweeping perspective and vivid on-the-ground reportage, Regan tells the stories of the people caught up in this international tragedy. Traveling back and forth across the border, she visits migrants stranded in Mexican shelters and rides shotgun with Border Patrol agents in Arizona, hiking with them for hours in the scorching desert; she camps out in the thorny wilderness with No More Deaths activists and meets with angry ranchers and vigilantes. Using Arizona as a microcosm, Regan explores a host of urgent the border militarization that threatens the rights of U.S. citizens, the environmental damage wrought by the border wall, the desperation that compels migrants to come north, and the human tragedy of the unidentified dead in Arizona’s morgues.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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November 19, 2017
"The Death of Josseline" was written several years ago but in our current political climate, this remains an incredibly important read. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has become an increasingly popular topic to rail over. There are many different sides and thoughts to consider. This book tries to capture many of these sides.
This heart-wrenching books opens with the death of a young teenager who is traveling through the harsh deserts of Northern Mexico with her little brother in order to reunite with their mother who lives in California. The author explores how she got to where she was and where she was going. The author also shows things from a different angle. Not only does she seek to show the migrants' point of view but also from the Border Patrol angle.
I know that immigration is one of the topics that I have been mulling over and I feel like this book helped me to understand things a little bit better. This is a hugely complicated issue. I know how I would handle it but as this book shows: there are a ton of different opinions and points of view that are incredibly difficult to reconcile!
This book is relatively short but it packs a punch!
This heart-wrenching books opens with the death of a young teenager who is traveling through the harsh deserts of Northern Mexico with her little brother in order to reunite with their mother who lives in California. The author explores how she got to where she was and where she was going. The author also shows things from a different angle. Not only does she seek to show the migrants' point of view but also from the Border Patrol angle.
I know that immigration is one of the topics that I have been mulling over and I feel like this book helped me to understand things a little bit better. This is a hugely complicated issue. I know how I would handle it but as this book shows: there are a ton of different opinions and points of view that are incredibly difficult to reconcile!
This book is relatively short but it packs a punch!
June 16, 2014
This is a book about immigration, and I’d like to start by telling you a little bit of my immigration story. As long as I could remember, we were coming to America. I can’t remember a time when we weren’t planning to come to America.
My mother had two brothers. The younger brother had the luck to be scouted by an American company in the late 60’s and came to America. The younger brother started the paperwork for the visa for my mother and her older brother. Ten years later, the visa finally came out for us and we immigrated to US in 1978. However, my uncle, my mother’s older brother, died a few months before the visa came out for him and his family. Therefore, because of a matter of months, my cousins and my aunt didn’t receive their entry visa and couldn’t come to US. Our cousins were like our brothers and sisters, and losing them like that when we had planned for ten years to come to US together was a blow and a life-long loss to all of us.
Even now, I’m not convinced that my parents’ decision to emigrate was the correct one for our family. We had a good life in Korea. A lot of people have nannies in Korea, and we had one, too. We took fun vacations, and we had a comfortable home. My father was on track to become a vice-principal of a girl’s high school, and my mother stayed home. I remember her bringing hot lunches to our elementary school.
My parents, they definite had a better life in Korea. Once in America, my parents both held down several jobs to make ends meet, and I think they usually go 4 – 5 hours of sleep each night. They never took vacations, and we lived from paycheck to paycheck for many years. Just recently, I asked them what induced them to give up all they had to come to America. They said, it’s hard to understand now, but a long time ago, a chance to come to America was like winning the lottery. Only those who had money to be educated abroad could come here and settle down, then invite his family to join him. Or like my uncle’s case, only those with very special skills could come. So, they asked back – if you thought you had won a once-in-a-lifetime lottery, would you turn it down? Of course, not!
I have to say, I think I’m more interested in the matter of the American Immigration policy than most people. Because of my personal history, I expected a lot from this book, and I don’t know what it is that I feel about this book. I know. It’s funny. I can’t say I liked the book because I didn’t. I wouldn’t read it over. However, it doesn’t take away the fact that this is an important book. Everybody who is associated with shaping of the American immigrant policy should read it.
Every life, both lived and died, described in this book is worthy of notice and remembrance, and every one of the stories is heart rendering. There are no happy stories because even those who make it over the fences, through the scorching desert, and disappear into the vast American landscape must face the harsh realities of living in America – long separation from loved ones, uncertain future, and walking on egg shells every day for detection and deportation. Yet, hundreds and thousands make the arduous journey because there are definite rewards for making it into America – being able to provide for their families better. Is it worth risking their lives? Depends on how desperate their lives were….
If these people want to come to America so badly that they’d risk their lives to get here, how many would work toward to weakening that society? This book does talk about the toll the illegal immigrants have on government budgets, but I don’t think this book does a good job of talking about what these immigrants bring to America.
But when the people complained about how long the visa process takes (10+ years!) for them to come to America legally, I had little sympathy for them. We waited that long or longer. There are thousands of people, all over the world, who wait that long for an official visa to come here. The only difference is that the geography prevents them from coming here illegally. So, why should that be any different for the people mentioned in the book? I guess I’m torn by the human misery and toll versus those thousands who are patiently waiting for their visas.
I’ve learned some important things from this book. I’ve learned some oxymoronic laws that seem to punish the good and reward the bad, but the more importantly, we need some kind of reform. There must be a way, we must be able to figure out a way, to save lives.
My mother had two brothers. The younger brother had the luck to be scouted by an American company in the late 60’s and came to America. The younger brother started the paperwork for the visa for my mother and her older brother. Ten years later, the visa finally came out for us and we immigrated to US in 1978. However, my uncle, my mother’s older brother, died a few months before the visa came out for him and his family. Therefore, because of a matter of months, my cousins and my aunt didn’t receive their entry visa and couldn’t come to US. Our cousins were like our brothers and sisters, and losing them like that when we had planned for ten years to come to US together was a blow and a life-long loss to all of us.
Even now, I’m not convinced that my parents’ decision to emigrate was the correct one for our family. We had a good life in Korea. A lot of people have nannies in Korea, and we had one, too. We took fun vacations, and we had a comfortable home. My father was on track to become a vice-principal of a girl’s high school, and my mother stayed home. I remember her bringing hot lunches to our elementary school.
My parents, they definite had a better life in Korea. Once in America, my parents both held down several jobs to make ends meet, and I think they usually go 4 – 5 hours of sleep each night. They never took vacations, and we lived from paycheck to paycheck for many years. Just recently, I asked them what induced them to give up all they had to come to America. They said, it’s hard to understand now, but a long time ago, a chance to come to America was like winning the lottery. Only those who had money to be educated abroad could come here and settle down, then invite his family to join him. Or like my uncle’s case, only those with very special skills could come. So, they asked back – if you thought you had won a once-in-a-lifetime lottery, would you turn it down? Of course, not!
I have to say, I think I’m more interested in the matter of the American Immigration policy than most people. Because of my personal history, I expected a lot from this book, and I don’t know what it is that I feel about this book. I know. It’s funny. I can’t say I liked the book because I didn’t. I wouldn’t read it over. However, it doesn’t take away the fact that this is an important book. Everybody who is associated with shaping of the American immigrant policy should read it.
Every life, both lived and died, described in this book is worthy of notice and remembrance, and every one of the stories is heart rendering. There are no happy stories because even those who make it over the fences, through the scorching desert, and disappear into the vast American landscape must face the harsh realities of living in America – long separation from loved ones, uncertain future, and walking on egg shells every day for detection and deportation. Yet, hundreds and thousands make the arduous journey because there are definite rewards for making it into America – being able to provide for their families better. Is it worth risking their lives? Depends on how desperate their lives were….
If these people want to come to America so badly that they’d risk their lives to get here, how many would work toward to weakening that society? This book does talk about the toll the illegal immigrants have on government budgets, but I don’t think this book does a good job of talking about what these immigrants bring to America.
But when the people complained about how long the visa process takes (10+ years!) for them to come to America legally, I had little sympathy for them. We waited that long or longer. There are thousands of people, all over the world, who wait that long for an official visa to come here. The only difference is that the geography prevents them from coming here illegally. So, why should that be any different for the people mentioned in the book? I guess I’m torn by the human misery and toll versus those thousands who are patiently waiting for their visas.
I’ve learned some important things from this book. I’ve learned some oxymoronic laws that seem to punish the good and reward the bad, but the more importantly, we need some kind of reform. There must be a way, we must be able to figure out a way, to save lives.
May 21, 2019
Josseline Hernández Quinteras was a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador who died in 2008 in the cold, winter desert just north of the Arizona/Mexico border. In 2010, when Death of Josseline was published, the wall already crossed more than 300 miles of the 377-mile long Arizona/Mexico border. About 5,000 migrants died between 1994 and 2010 while crossing into the US. Margaret Regan, a Tucson journalist, makes clear that there are no easy answers.
The US has often addressed the end of the line – immigrants coming into the country – rather than the factors creating the influx: poverty, unemployment, and underemployment in Central and South America. Regan does not focus on the North American Free Trade Agreement, but repeatedly circled back to it as a factor increasing the flow of immigrants, describing the ways that it undercut farmers, as cheap corn was exported to Mexico. The resulting poverty caused people to migrate north to more abundant and better-paying jobs. Despite being "deathly afraid of dying in the desert," migrants made the dangerous crossing into the US. As one of Regan's interview subjects concluded, "That tells you something" (p. 165).
Immigration and the wall are controversial among people living near it. These problems include increased immigrant deaths as migrants are pushed into crossing in more dangerous areas, overloaded coroners' offices, interrupted travel and trade across border towns and between former friends and family, and interrupted migratory paths for native animals such as the jaguar. Landowners along the border dislike the noisy helicopters, SUVs, and Border Patrol crossing their land. They don't like the way that the wall interrupts their view. Others don't like the migrants crossing their land and dropping water bottles and other debris on their trip.
Further enraging some people is that the US government "intentionally redirected hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants away from previously busy crossing points in California and Texas into Arizona's perilous and deadly landscape" (Binational Migration Institute, as quoted on p. xxiii). As one man concluded, concerns about migration "do not trump moral responsibility when people are dying" (p. 137).
Finally, there are the children who were brought here, identify as Americans, but are unable to work legally. They are sent back to a country that is not home to them if they are caught (like the Panda Express Eleven). While Regan doesn't talk much about this, the US is ambivalent about immigrant labor, which "steals good jobs" in political rhetoric, but more frequently provides inexpensive labor for jobs we do not want to perform.
My great-grandparents, great-aunts, and -uncles were immigrants, near enough in time that I have heard stories of their experiences coming into this country. They were lucky, as like Josseline, many European immigrants died in their journey to this country. I wonder to what degree people who talk about building a wall recognize the irony inherent to their demands.
As an aside, I appreciated the map of the Arizona/Mexico border, which helped me gain a greater appreciation of this area. I wish more books included maps.
The US has often addressed the end of the line – immigrants coming into the country – rather than the factors creating the influx: poverty, unemployment, and underemployment in Central and South America. Regan does not focus on the North American Free Trade Agreement, but repeatedly circled back to it as a factor increasing the flow of immigrants, describing the ways that it undercut farmers, as cheap corn was exported to Mexico. The resulting poverty caused people to migrate north to more abundant and better-paying jobs. Despite being "deathly afraid of dying in the desert," migrants made the dangerous crossing into the US. As one of Regan's interview subjects concluded, "That tells you something" (p. 165).
Immigration and the wall are controversial among people living near it. These problems include increased immigrant deaths as migrants are pushed into crossing in more dangerous areas, overloaded coroners' offices, interrupted travel and trade across border towns and between former friends and family, and interrupted migratory paths for native animals such as the jaguar. Landowners along the border dislike the noisy helicopters, SUVs, and Border Patrol crossing their land. They don't like the way that the wall interrupts their view. Others don't like the migrants crossing their land and dropping water bottles and other debris on their trip.
Further enraging some people is that the US government "intentionally redirected hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants away from previously busy crossing points in California and Texas into Arizona's perilous and deadly landscape" (Binational Migration Institute, as quoted on p. xxiii). As one man concluded, concerns about migration "do not trump moral responsibility when people are dying" (p. 137).
Finally, there are the children who were brought here, identify as Americans, but are unable to work legally. They are sent back to a country that is not home to them if they are caught (like the Panda Express Eleven). While Regan doesn't talk much about this, the US is ambivalent about immigrant labor, which "steals good jobs" in political rhetoric, but more frequently provides inexpensive labor for jobs we do not want to perform.
My great-grandparents, great-aunts, and -uncles were immigrants, near enough in time that I have heard stories of their experiences coming into this country. They were lucky, as like Josseline, many European immigrants died in their journey to this country. I wonder to what degree people who talk about building a wall recognize the irony inherent to their demands.
As an aside, I appreciated the map of the Arizona/Mexico border, which helped me gain a greater appreciation of this area. I wish more books included maps.
April 11, 2010
“She was a little girl with a big name, Josseline Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros.” Thanks to Margaret Regan no one who reads ‘The Death of Josseline’ will ever forget her.
Regan takes the tragic death of this fourteen year old undocumented migrant and weaves it though a series of chapters that deal with a variety of immigration border issues in Arizona. With the astute view point of a journalist, Regan takes several of her previously reported stories in the Tucson Weekly, and fleshes them out with her personal experiences traveling with both the Border Patrol and various activists to document the stories of the migrant, and today’s current headlines. She allows us to see through the eyes of the traveler the reasons they risk their lives in the harsh Sonoran desert environment and brutal heat of the Arizona summer to reach the ‘promised land’ in order to make a better life for themselves.
We hear from all the players in the cast from conservationists, activists, border agents, vigilantes, border land owners and the migrants themselves as Regan provides a cache all of comments. We get her unbiased view of the triple whammy: “habitat fragmentation, funneling of migrants, border enforcement” and see how we as a people have tied each others hands in a desperate fight to secure our borders to the South.
No matter you personal feelings in this ongoing trial by fire one thing stands out above all else. These migrants are human first and foremost and illegal as a secondary thought and do not deserve to die in their flight to freedom. Regan’s portrayal is at once insightful and sympathetic in its telling; one that deserves to read by all humanity.
The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands
Regan takes the tragic death of this fourteen year old undocumented migrant and weaves it though a series of chapters that deal with a variety of immigration border issues in Arizona. With the astute view point of a journalist, Regan takes several of her previously reported stories in the Tucson Weekly, and fleshes them out with her personal experiences traveling with both the Border Patrol and various activists to document the stories of the migrant, and today’s current headlines. She allows us to see through the eyes of the traveler the reasons they risk their lives in the harsh Sonoran desert environment and brutal heat of the Arizona summer to reach the ‘promised land’ in order to make a better life for themselves.
We hear from all the players in the cast from conservationists, activists, border agents, vigilantes, border land owners and the migrants themselves as Regan provides a cache all of comments. We get her unbiased view of the triple whammy: “habitat fragmentation, funneling of migrants, border enforcement” and see how we as a people have tied each others hands in a desperate fight to secure our borders to the South.
No matter you personal feelings in this ongoing trial by fire one thing stands out above all else. These migrants are human first and foremost and illegal as a secondary thought and do not deserve to die in their flight to freedom. Regan’s portrayal is at once insightful and sympathetic in its telling; one that deserves to read by all humanity.
The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands
October 12, 2011
Regan's book is a timely examination of the perils of US immigration policy. Opening with the tragic story of the death of fourteen-year-old Josseline, who falls sick while trying to cross the desert and is left to die, alone and afraid, Regan pulls no punches as she recounts the stories of several people injured or killed while trying to get to America. While some may feel The Death of Josseline skews to the left, it is a fair and balanced look at the US-Mexico border and the dangers of crossing in the desert and the costs of rescuing those who fail in their attempt.
However, Regan also makes it plain that wholesale immigration is not the answer, providing a brief but clear-sighted examination of what US policy-makers and aid groups could do to improve economic conditions in Mexico and Central America, keeping would-be migrants at home and able to thrive in their own villages. She also highlights the plight of ranchers and other residents coping with waves of migrants and the efforts of the Border Patrol to contain them. By her account, it's hard to tell who's more destructive of property and the environment- the migrants or the Patrol.
The Death of Josseline puts a human face on the impersonal debate surrounding illegal immigration, and her book should be required reading for people of all ages and opinions regarding this pressing issue.
However, Regan also makes it plain that wholesale immigration is not the answer, providing a brief but clear-sighted examination of what US policy-makers and aid groups could do to improve economic conditions in Mexico and Central America, keeping would-be migrants at home and able to thrive in their own villages. She also highlights the plight of ranchers and other residents coping with waves of migrants and the efforts of the Border Patrol to contain them. By her account, it's hard to tell who's more destructive of property and the environment- the migrants or the Patrol.
The Death of Josseline puts a human face on the impersonal debate surrounding illegal immigration, and her book should be required reading for people of all ages and opinions regarding this pressing issue.
October 8, 2010
We spoke with the author with book club. Great experience! Margaret presents different perspectives of the immigration issues; some we did not think of before. She presents the immigrants in a very humane, compassionate way.
April 23, 2018
On our militarized south-western border, several thousand migrants died in the early 2000s. A few of their stories pulled me in hard, and the larger economic tragedy these poorest of the poor families faced hurt viscerally. “How far would you walk to feed your kids?”
Honestly this is a very difficult book.. both to start and to finish. Once committed to the devastatingly sad first story, it feels almost sacrilegious to abandon the rest of the stories unread, as if I were abandoning the memory of those brave and unfortunate migrants, who’s stories were brought right to my hands by Regan. I can’t do anything for them, so I can at least offer my attention to their suffering, my empathy to their memory.
The last chapter, about the Panda Express Eleven in Arizona, is a devastating indictment of selective law-enforcement for political aims. It’s much easier to round up immigrants and accuse them of identity theft, then it is to actually solve real identity theft crime isn’t it. This story reported in excellent detail made me so angry. 10 young children couldn’t see their parents for almost a year, just so for-profit prisons, pastoring politicians, and various sycophants could make money.
The poor suffer from all directions: from the coyotes smugglers who lie to them, from the Migra who return them in a worse condition than before with fewer options, from the mexican government’s inability to create jobs, and from the maquilas factories which vastly underpay wages relative to value, but are still better than any other available jobs. And of course they suffer from drug gang abuse and ordinary criminal predations. All so awful.
NAFTA devastated the poor rural farming communities of Mexico. The uprising in Chiapas started on the day it was signed. The migrant floods to the border spiked upward for a decade from 1998.
I can’t help but feel that the Presbyterian and Unitarians and Catholics serving these impoverished migrants are closer to the teachings of Jesus, and to human empathy and morality, than “christian” americans just turning cold and distant or hostile/defensive. We can’t accept every migrant, and it isn’t certain that the very best people turn up lost in the desert, yet our common humanity must be acknowledged and their dramatic, harrowing, sometimes tragic, adventures must be honored and admired.
Honestly this is a very difficult book.. both to start and to finish. Once committed to the devastatingly sad first story, it feels almost sacrilegious to abandon the rest of the stories unread, as if I were abandoning the memory of those brave and unfortunate migrants, who’s stories were brought right to my hands by Regan. I can’t do anything for them, so I can at least offer my attention to their suffering, my empathy to their memory.
The last chapter, about the Panda Express Eleven in Arizona, is a devastating indictment of selective law-enforcement for political aims. It’s much easier to round up immigrants and accuse them of identity theft, then it is to actually solve real identity theft crime isn’t it. This story reported in excellent detail made me so angry. 10 young children couldn’t see their parents for almost a year, just so for-profit prisons, pastoring politicians, and various sycophants could make money.
The poor suffer from all directions: from the coyotes smugglers who lie to them, from the Migra who return them in a worse condition than before with fewer options, from the mexican government’s inability to create jobs, and from the maquilas factories which vastly underpay wages relative to value, but are still better than any other available jobs. And of course they suffer from drug gang abuse and ordinary criminal predations. All so awful.
NAFTA devastated the poor rural farming communities of Mexico. The uprising in Chiapas started on the day it was signed. The migrant floods to the border spiked upward for a decade from 1998.
I can’t help but feel that the Presbyterian and Unitarians and Catholics serving these impoverished migrants are closer to the teachings of Jesus, and to human empathy and morality, than “christian” americans just turning cold and distant or hostile/defensive. We can’t accept every migrant, and it isn’t certain that the very best people turn up lost in the desert, yet our common humanity must be acknowledged and their dramatic, harrowing, sometimes tragic, adventures must be honored and admired.
July 7, 2013
The author has done some serious homework in putting this book together. She has spoken with migrants (many) on both sides of the border, as well as interviewing smugglers, Border Patrol agents, ranchers, border residents, and just about everyone else involved in or affected by the current immigration mess on the southern U.S. border. She visits the scenes familiar to the migrants, on both sides of the border. The reader moves with the author through the rocky canyons and the ubiquitous cactus and thorny trees; feels the fence wire and encounters the astonishing (and intimidating) steel walls; sits in the stark interview rooms where arrested migrants are dealt with by the Border Patrol and ICE; visits the border villages where the coyotes lurk and the merchants sell gear to the hopeful travelers; and watches the agencies and NGOs on the Mexican side that feed, clothe, and nurture those who have been returned to Mexico, sometimes injured but almost always hungry, and often stripped of whatever goods and money they started north with.
Unlike other writers who have portrayed the human drama of the border, this author does not grind her axe with slanted language and details included (or omitted) only to support her message. She paints a complete picture, letting her facts make her message, which, as it turns out, makes her message that much more powerful.
My only criticism is that, while the author chooses to write in certain sections about American legal processes faced by migrants, I don't think she was sufficiently knowledgeable to get across to lay readers what really happened in the courts or what these processes have meant. But perhaps I'm being picky because I'm a lawyer who deals with these same issues.
Overall, though, this is a terrific, well-written, thoughtful book. I recommend it.
Unlike other writers who have portrayed the human drama of the border, this author does not grind her axe with slanted language and details included (or omitted) only to support her message. She paints a complete picture, letting her facts make her message, which, as it turns out, makes her message that much more powerful.
My only criticism is that, while the author chooses to write in certain sections about American legal processes faced by migrants, I don't think she was sufficiently knowledgeable to get across to lay readers what really happened in the courts or what these processes have meant. But perhaps I'm being picky because I'm a lawyer who deals with these same issues.
Overall, though, this is a terrific, well-written, thoughtful book. I recommend it.
August 19, 2010
I think everyone in America, and especially those creating policy, should read this book in order to have a better understanding of what American "immigration" policy is causing. Living in a border state, I realize there are many opinions about the migrants/illegals/undocumented and I think, as humans, we all have to remember that they are humans too. I doubt there is a person in America who, if starving, wouldn't do everything in their power to make their situation better if they could, That is what these migrants are trying to do. And it certainly appears that they are being treated inhumanely. Where is the outrage?
January 8, 2012
The perspective in this book is interesting and the stories of the immigrants are compelling, but the bias in favor of the immigrants seems too great. We have to look very realistically at the illegals for what they are "Illegal Immigrants" and deal with that.
January 21, 2019
I thought a lot about this book, and so I'm going to write at length and rant a bit.
This book personalizes the issues, while bringing deserved attention to some of the major areas and facts that aren't often mentioned, such as militarization of the border since Homeland Security took it over from Dept. of Justice after 911, a big mistake in my estimation.
The asymmetry of arguments made in the press and among politicians confuses the size of the various factors and the public. It appears that since Homeland Security taking over and the Patriot Act's many laws, which both step on constitutional rights and militarize the border, as well as make every immigrant a suspect for terrorism, there has been inordinate havoc struck on the towns adjacent to the border. And too much attention paid to ineffective means of control (walls), while largely ignoring the huge humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
(This from another's review)---Less mentioned in the news is the effect of militarization on American soil. Regan speaks with Arizona citizens who have had to endure the continuous presence of armed agents upon their property (no warrant needed) and intrusively loud helicopters hovering over their homes, shining blinding lights through their windows, as well as dealing with the presence of newly-erected towers, which cost millions yet proved ineffective. As one resident is quoted, “Around here it’s 1984.”
Regan also speaks to people about the environmental costs of permanent walls, which include destroying fragile animal habitats, creating devastating erosion and debris collection, and bulldozing sacred Native American sites. All the while, migrants are dying by the hundreds each year (end from other's review).
According to Regan's interviews with several organizations who have garnered data, some estimate over a 15 year period close to 1000 per year. However, because morgues and bodies are collected at separate locations, it seems even this has to be estimated. Yet, we know that the problems of the southern border are ratcheted with non-facts and escalated anecdotal scares during political races to boost ratings, that is, as to who can be the hardest line rhetorical politician.
However, the reality and facts speak differently than the politicians, such as Jan Brewer (what even happened to this past Governor of hate?) and the illusions politicians create. Whereas "coyotes" account for some atrocities leading to deaths, most are a result of miscalculated policies, such as the closing of urban ports of entry (El Paso and SanDiego), forcing rural and desert entry in AZ, which has meant many immigrant deaths.
It is startling how this issue has been framed so inaccurately over time, although most especially by this present President, no believer in factualness. Nothing is factual, and without facts you can't accurately or precisely attach the real problem(s). Estimates place true criminality and drug smuggling at about 10%; why not use resources to actually attack this small number and free up resources and private profits from silly and destructive walls, which also are not even very effective.
The true crisis appears to have many sources but the damage of misidentifying and/or deliberately distorting the complex challenges, help no one.
To me it would seem that these actions as a start would ameliorate the southern border challenges:
1. Stabilization of the sending countries through aid or expertise in economic development needs occur, the soft diplomacy and international aid to impoverished areas, as we truly are all connected in some way or another. The Café Justo co-op effort was a great example; this was funded thru a micro-loan of $20,000 by the Presbyterian church. These people wanted to stay in Salvador Urbina, Mexico if they could make a living; Justo Café allowed for that to happen.
2. A Humanitarian border, such that folks are allowed in and cases adjudicated. Once decided, the compliance of outcome would be seriously enforced. This would eliminate deaths and the inhumane treatments, allowing for the appropriate time to justly make determination. It would also avoid much of the tragic outcomes, as well as the expensive work done by: hospitals, morgues, detectives determining who folks are, expensive rescue operations and all the attendant environmental destruction. Regulated routes and ports of entry with humanity decrease the necessity of all the illegal coyotes and the like, rancher lands being “invaded”e and the scares then are associated with the 10% criminal activity getting inflated with the 90% of legal seekers.
3. This type of approach frees up immense amounts of resources for the actual factual 10% drug cartels and criminal interests to be seriously blocked/reduced.
4. Stop the large profiteering being made at the border through the contractors for so much security. Fiasco of Boeing (p. 93) billions to be made!
5. Remove ICE and Homeland Security from overseeing this arena, and return the oversight to a less punitive and criminal assuming law enforcement, such as was prior, the Justice Dept. The whole militarization of the border since the creation of Homeland Security and post-911 have gone way too far. Again, profits have been tremendous in these shifts of resources and oversight.
Some of the really life-saving and other saving work being done were also called out:
The organizations that exist for humanitarian aid are just patching, that is, "band-aid work", but that seems to be all one can actually do at this moment that's helpful at all since government policy makers are more interested in power and punitiveness:
Here were some helpful efforts along many dimensions, human and otherwise, in 2012 mentioned by Regan:
Volunteer & church efforts are many (not in order of importance, and very unequivalent items!):
Catholic Social Services
BORSTAR
No More Deaths
Tucson Samaritans and Green Valley Samaritans
Grupa Beta on Mexican side helps migrants coming and going (p. 55) 17 stations
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge –fragile desert soil wrecked by foot traffic
Some of the added challenges of southern border's present controls and walls:
Constitutional rights and international law being short shrifted
Environmental degradation –flooding due to wall, desert habitat, Fish and Wildlife upset over littering …water bottles, plastic, clothes left…Borderlands Protection Campaign (p. 171)-violence done to landscape.
Wildlife disruption-p. 178 jaguar and other concerns have Sierra and Defenders of Life collaborating REAL IF Act (post 911, one of many) over-rides all the archaelogical, environmental and cultural (p. 181) all the laws abrogated when wall by feds desired.
Archaeological intrusions p. 142 ( National Register of Historic Places just set to the side by Boeing’s construction of wall.
Native American lands split across border (pp. 130-132-O’odham nation). Tribe’s cost ran around 7 million a year for law enforcement, rescues, hospital care (p. 136).Also feel cultural and physical trespassing.
Local residents’ have border intrusions such as agents on their lands, noise and air traffic, lights and fencing that upsets their lives and peacefulness
Ranchers have intruders and strangers on their lands and the consequent trash left which is considerable from the sounds of it
Eye-sore and aesthetic considerations of locals
Panda Express worker scoop up is a case of war on the poor, at work to be scooped up and kept for months from families---horrific. (pp. 190-209).
Tremendous pull on local resources, churches and hospitals and emergency workers, as well as police and rescue patrols. This is monetary as well as the huge efforts of human resources tapped.
Hospitals for instance: St Mary’s in Tucson and Holy Cross in Nogales (their Carondulet Health Network (p. 78) is their parent company and regularly spent yearly 1.5 million, and the only trauma care hospital in the area, Tuscon’s UMC spent millions more on migrant care. There was a 3 year (2005-08) federal program that allowed the feds to pick up under section 1011 of the medicare modernization act 250 million for emergency care only to US hospitals for migrant care.
NAFTA had an impact and in 1998, influx really took off (p. 52).
2005-2007 with Mexico squeezing drug cartels, they in turn squeeze migrants to make up their losses, extortion etc. These are peak years for drugs. By 2009 extortions and bandits on certain roads at their heighth, became unsafe, and migrant are the biggest targets for mafia’s road extortions.
Towns feeling over-run and sort of taken over by the influx of both immigrants and border patrol security efforts—invaded by both in a way they weren’t always, Numbers and scale hugely increased but then towards end of time of book, this arc decreased, in part due to 2008-9 economic downturn of US.
Well, obviously this book had a large impact on me. I think largely because the scale and complexity of the problem are large enough without the distortions and emotional rhetoric that have only increased the likelihood that the government will not do anything that truly addresses this humanitarian criss that only increases with time.
Side note beyond the book: The recent separation of children from families will act as our time's "Japanese Internment camps" of WWII. Only with that shameful government action kept families together during that trauma. We have not been as humane in this present set of government actions to the great detriment of these children's futures and the emotional damage done that is most often irredeemable. How better to create hateful terrorists than this horrific set of actions? It's both tragic, shameful and a dystopian future for these damaged souls.
This book personalizes the issues, while bringing deserved attention to some of the major areas and facts that aren't often mentioned, such as militarization of the border since Homeland Security took it over from Dept. of Justice after 911, a big mistake in my estimation.
The asymmetry of arguments made in the press and among politicians confuses the size of the various factors and the public. It appears that since Homeland Security taking over and the Patriot Act's many laws, which both step on constitutional rights and militarize the border, as well as make every immigrant a suspect for terrorism, there has been inordinate havoc struck on the towns adjacent to the border. And too much attention paid to ineffective means of control (walls), while largely ignoring the huge humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
(This from another's review)---Less mentioned in the news is the effect of militarization on American soil. Regan speaks with Arizona citizens who have had to endure the continuous presence of armed agents upon their property (no warrant needed) and intrusively loud helicopters hovering over their homes, shining blinding lights through their windows, as well as dealing with the presence of newly-erected towers, which cost millions yet proved ineffective. As one resident is quoted, “Around here it’s 1984.”
Regan also speaks to people about the environmental costs of permanent walls, which include destroying fragile animal habitats, creating devastating erosion and debris collection, and bulldozing sacred Native American sites. All the while, migrants are dying by the hundreds each year (end from other's review).
According to Regan's interviews with several organizations who have garnered data, some estimate over a 15 year period close to 1000 per year. However, because morgues and bodies are collected at separate locations, it seems even this has to be estimated. Yet, we know that the problems of the southern border are ratcheted with non-facts and escalated anecdotal scares during political races to boost ratings, that is, as to who can be the hardest line rhetorical politician.
However, the reality and facts speak differently than the politicians, such as Jan Brewer (what even happened to this past Governor of hate?) and the illusions politicians create. Whereas "coyotes" account for some atrocities leading to deaths, most are a result of miscalculated policies, such as the closing of urban ports of entry (El Paso and SanDiego), forcing rural and desert entry in AZ, which has meant many immigrant deaths.
It is startling how this issue has been framed so inaccurately over time, although most especially by this present President, no believer in factualness. Nothing is factual, and without facts you can't accurately or precisely attach the real problem(s). Estimates place true criminality and drug smuggling at about 10%; why not use resources to actually attack this small number and free up resources and private profits from silly and destructive walls, which also are not even very effective.
The true crisis appears to have many sources but the damage of misidentifying and/or deliberately distorting the complex challenges, help no one.
To me it would seem that these actions as a start would ameliorate the southern border challenges:
1. Stabilization of the sending countries through aid or expertise in economic development needs occur, the soft diplomacy and international aid to impoverished areas, as we truly are all connected in some way or another. The Café Justo co-op effort was a great example; this was funded thru a micro-loan of $20,000 by the Presbyterian church. These people wanted to stay in Salvador Urbina, Mexico if they could make a living; Justo Café allowed for that to happen.
2. A Humanitarian border, such that folks are allowed in and cases adjudicated. Once decided, the compliance of outcome would be seriously enforced. This would eliminate deaths and the inhumane treatments, allowing for the appropriate time to justly make determination. It would also avoid much of the tragic outcomes, as well as the expensive work done by: hospitals, morgues, detectives determining who folks are, expensive rescue operations and all the attendant environmental destruction. Regulated routes and ports of entry with humanity decrease the necessity of all the illegal coyotes and the like, rancher lands being “invaded”e and the scares then are associated with the 10% criminal activity getting inflated with the 90% of legal seekers.
3. This type of approach frees up immense amounts of resources for the actual factual 10% drug cartels and criminal interests to be seriously blocked/reduced.
4. Stop the large profiteering being made at the border through the contractors for so much security. Fiasco of Boeing (p. 93) billions to be made!
5. Remove ICE and Homeland Security from overseeing this arena, and return the oversight to a less punitive and criminal assuming law enforcement, such as was prior, the Justice Dept. The whole militarization of the border since the creation of Homeland Security and post-911 have gone way too far. Again, profits have been tremendous in these shifts of resources and oversight.
Some of the really life-saving and other saving work being done were also called out:
The organizations that exist for humanitarian aid are just patching, that is, "band-aid work", but that seems to be all one can actually do at this moment that's helpful at all since government policy makers are more interested in power and punitiveness:
Here were some helpful efforts along many dimensions, human and otherwise, in 2012 mentioned by Regan:
Volunteer & church efforts are many (not in order of importance, and very unequivalent items!):
Catholic Social Services
BORSTAR
No More Deaths
Tucson Samaritans and Green Valley Samaritans
Grupa Beta on Mexican side helps migrants coming and going (p. 55) 17 stations
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge –fragile desert soil wrecked by foot traffic
Some of the added challenges of southern border's present controls and walls:
Constitutional rights and international law being short shrifted
Environmental degradation –flooding due to wall, desert habitat, Fish and Wildlife upset over littering …water bottles, plastic, clothes left…Borderlands Protection Campaign (p. 171)-violence done to landscape.
Wildlife disruption-p. 178 jaguar and other concerns have Sierra and Defenders of Life collaborating REAL IF Act (post 911, one of many) over-rides all the archaelogical, environmental and cultural (p. 181) all the laws abrogated when wall by feds desired.
Archaeological intrusions p. 142 ( National Register of Historic Places just set to the side by Boeing’s construction of wall.
Native American lands split across border (pp. 130-132-O’odham nation). Tribe’s cost ran around 7 million a year for law enforcement, rescues, hospital care (p. 136).Also feel cultural and physical trespassing.
Local residents’ have border intrusions such as agents on their lands, noise and air traffic, lights and fencing that upsets their lives and peacefulness
Ranchers have intruders and strangers on their lands and the consequent trash left which is considerable from the sounds of it
Eye-sore and aesthetic considerations of locals
Panda Express worker scoop up is a case of war on the poor, at work to be scooped up and kept for months from families---horrific. (pp. 190-209).
Tremendous pull on local resources, churches and hospitals and emergency workers, as well as police and rescue patrols. This is monetary as well as the huge efforts of human resources tapped.
Hospitals for instance: St Mary’s in Tucson and Holy Cross in Nogales (their Carondulet Health Network (p. 78) is their parent company and regularly spent yearly 1.5 million, and the only trauma care hospital in the area, Tuscon’s UMC spent millions more on migrant care. There was a 3 year (2005-08) federal program that allowed the feds to pick up under section 1011 of the medicare modernization act 250 million for emergency care only to US hospitals for migrant care.
NAFTA had an impact and in 1998, influx really took off (p. 52).
2005-2007 with Mexico squeezing drug cartels, they in turn squeeze migrants to make up their losses, extortion etc. These are peak years for drugs. By 2009 extortions and bandits on certain roads at their heighth, became unsafe, and migrant are the biggest targets for mafia’s road extortions.
Towns feeling over-run and sort of taken over by the influx of both immigrants and border patrol security efforts—invaded by both in a way they weren’t always, Numbers and scale hugely increased but then towards end of time of book, this arc decreased, in part due to 2008-9 economic downturn of US.
Well, obviously this book had a large impact on me. I think largely because the scale and complexity of the problem are large enough without the distortions and emotional rhetoric that have only increased the likelihood that the government will not do anything that truly addresses this humanitarian criss that only increases with time.
Side note beyond the book: The recent separation of children from families will act as our time's "Japanese Internment camps" of WWII. Only with that shameful government action kept families together during that trauma. We have not been as humane in this present set of government actions to the great detriment of these children's futures and the emotional damage done that is most often irredeemable. How better to create hateful terrorists than this horrific set of actions? It's both tragic, shameful and a dystopian future for these damaged souls.
August 31, 2018
Josseline Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros was a fourteen-year-old girl from El Salvador who illegally crossed the U.S. border in Arizona in January 2008. While traveling with her young brother and other compañeros, led by a shifty coyote, she became ill and was left behind to fend for herself in the harsh desert climate. She did not survive. Her tragic death, and the retrieval of her body, serve as the springboard for Margaret Regan’s analysis of the decade of chaos which reigned on the Arizona border, beginning in 2000, which claimed the lives of thousands of migrants who perished in the unforgiving expanse of dirt and brush, some whose remains have been recovered, many others whose bleached bones remain where they fell. In The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands, Regan draws upon her years of on-the-ground reporting from both sides of the international divide, and presents a journalist’s perspective on what went wrong in Arizona, focusing upon the lives of the migrants, citizens, and Border Patrol agents whose lives are directly shaped by the crisis.
As to the cause of this situation, Regan points to the increased border security of urban crossings in Texas and California under the Clinton administration. The unforgiving landscape of the Southwest, the administration believed, would have served as a natural deterrent. Once migrants realized what the environment was like, Immigration and Naturalization commissioner Doris Meissner had predicted, “the number of people crossing the border in Arizona would go down to a trickle.” Unfortunately, this proved a deadly miscalculation, for “the abrupt sealing of urban crossings did not stop impoverished migrants from trying to get into the United States. It only pushed them into the wild.” Even when the number of border crossings decreased at the end of that first decade, the number of deaths in the desert continued to rise, for new increased enforcement along the Arizona border merely pushed desperate migrants into ever wilder areas.
Yet Regan’s motivation for writing the book stems from more humanitarian concerns. Her argument rests on the premise that strict border enforcement has caused more harm than good, and that the means, aggression, and penalties which the government wields against migrants is disproportionate to their crime. As a resident of Tucson, Regan states that she couldn’t sit passively as injustices occurred just a few hours drive from her home: “Human beings were dying in fields and in a desert… while ordinary American life continued all around them. Agents of my own government were chasing down farmworkers and busboys and cleaning ladies with helicopters and infrared cameras, and hauling the poorest of the poor off to jail in handcuffs.” In addition to the personal plights of migrants, Regan argues that her book is “about the impact of immigration on communities on both sides of the border, about the devastation border enforcement wreaks on the environment, and about the ways a military occupation on American soil erodes the civil liberties and human rights of Americans and immigrants alike.”
To make her argument, Regan relies most heavily on interviews. She speaks not only to migrants, but also to Border Patrol agents, No More Deaths activists, border residents, scientists, and others involved in the bureaucracy and quagmire of the border situation. She also frequently turns to government reports for figures and statistics. Unfortunately, Regan does not always present the sources of her numbers, particularly when they involve money, and the book contains no citations, making it difficult for the reader to verify her assertions. For her recounting of Josseline’s death, Regan states that, in addition to interviews, she consulted the county medical examiner’s autopsy report as well as relied on her own experiences hiking the location.
Despite the reader’s frequent dependence upon taking the author’s word at face value, Regan succeeds in compiling an array of accounts which convincingly illustrate her aforementioned grievances. The abuses of coyotes, particularly against women, has been well documented, and Regan addresses it with due regard. However, less mentioned in the news is the effect of militarization on American soil. Regan speaks with Arizona citizens who have had to endure the continuous presence of armed agents upon their property (no warrant needed) and intrusively loud helicopters hovering over their homes, shining blinding lights through their windows, as well as dealing with the presence of newly-erected towers, which cost millions yet proved ineffective. As one resident is quoted, “Around here it’s 1984.” Regan also speaks to people about the environmental costs of permanent walls, which include destroying fragile animal habitats, creating devastating erosion and debris collection, and bulldozing sacred Native American sites. All the while, migrants are dying by the hundreds each year.
Regan also explores alternatives to fighting illegal immigration which are more humane and less destructive, yet which have proven effective. She profiles a Mexican co-op of coffee growers just over the border which has empowered its members and granted them financial stability, making crossing the border no longer necessary or desirable. Begun with a small loan from a church, the lesson presents itself: if the government spent some of its money on people instead of on enforcement, to help stabilize and build economies in Mexico and Central America, the flow of migrants would steadily lessen. In other words, treat the cause, not simply the symptom.
The Death of Josseline places the stale statistics of migrants' deaths into the context of the impoverished, desperate individuals who would chance death to achieve a better life. Glaringly obvious is the futility and madness of building a wall along the border, a xenophobic symbol of our failure of imagination and compassion, a dividing line between two countries who are at peace and who have strong economic and cultural ties. The ease of bypassing such a structure, the negative effects it has on the population and environment, the erosion of civil liberties it creates even for citizens, and its insurmountable costs far outweigh its meager benefits. Porous borders are certainly not in the interest of national security - it’s only reasonable that a nation would want to know who is entering their territory - yet using paramilitary force against the poor and helpless, people whose realistic goal is to get a job scrubbing toilets, is a byproduct of American prejudice and a nation’s misplaced fear and anger. The United States is not a victim of these migrant “criminals,” but all are victims of a broken immigration system that values “zero tolerance” and rule of law over reason, understanding, and basic humanitarianism.
As to the cause of this situation, Regan points to the increased border security of urban crossings in Texas and California under the Clinton administration. The unforgiving landscape of the Southwest, the administration believed, would have served as a natural deterrent. Once migrants realized what the environment was like, Immigration and Naturalization commissioner Doris Meissner had predicted, “the number of people crossing the border in Arizona would go down to a trickle.” Unfortunately, this proved a deadly miscalculation, for “the abrupt sealing of urban crossings did not stop impoverished migrants from trying to get into the United States. It only pushed them into the wild.” Even when the number of border crossings decreased at the end of that first decade, the number of deaths in the desert continued to rise, for new increased enforcement along the Arizona border merely pushed desperate migrants into ever wilder areas.
Yet Regan’s motivation for writing the book stems from more humanitarian concerns. Her argument rests on the premise that strict border enforcement has caused more harm than good, and that the means, aggression, and penalties which the government wields against migrants is disproportionate to their crime. As a resident of Tucson, Regan states that she couldn’t sit passively as injustices occurred just a few hours drive from her home: “Human beings were dying in fields and in a desert… while ordinary American life continued all around them. Agents of my own government were chasing down farmworkers and busboys and cleaning ladies with helicopters and infrared cameras, and hauling the poorest of the poor off to jail in handcuffs.” In addition to the personal plights of migrants, Regan argues that her book is “about the impact of immigration on communities on both sides of the border, about the devastation border enforcement wreaks on the environment, and about the ways a military occupation on American soil erodes the civil liberties and human rights of Americans and immigrants alike.”
To make her argument, Regan relies most heavily on interviews. She speaks not only to migrants, but also to Border Patrol agents, No More Deaths activists, border residents, scientists, and others involved in the bureaucracy and quagmire of the border situation. She also frequently turns to government reports for figures and statistics. Unfortunately, Regan does not always present the sources of her numbers, particularly when they involve money, and the book contains no citations, making it difficult for the reader to verify her assertions. For her recounting of Josseline’s death, Regan states that, in addition to interviews, she consulted the county medical examiner’s autopsy report as well as relied on her own experiences hiking the location.
Despite the reader’s frequent dependence upon taking the author’s word at face value, Regan succeeds in compiling an array of accounts which convincingly illustrate her aforementioned grievances. The abuses of coyotes, particularly against women, has been well documented, and Regan addresses it with due regard. However, less mentioned in the news is the effect of militarization on American soil. Regan speaks with Arizona citizens who have had to endure the continuous presence of armed agents upon their property (no warrant needed) and intrusively loud helicopters hovering over their homes, shining blinding lights through their windows, as well as dealing with the presence of newly-erected towers, which cost millions yet proved ineffective. As one resident is quoted, “Around here it’s 1984.” Regan also speaks to people about the environmental costs of permanent walls, which include destroying fragile animal habitats, creating devastating erosion and debris collection, and bulldozing sacred Native American sites. All the while, migrants are dying by the hundreds each year.
Regan also explores alternatives to fighting illegal immigration which are more humane and less destructive, yet which have proven effective. She profiles a Mexican co-op of coffee growers just over the border which has empowered its members and granted them financial stability, making crossing the border no longer necessary or desirable. Begun with a small loan from a church, the lesson presents itself: if the government spent some of its money on people instead of on enforcement, to help stabilize and build economies in Mexico and Central America, the flow of migrants would steadily lessen. In other words, treat the cause, not simply the symptom.
The Death of Josseline places the stale statistics of migrants' deaths into the context of the impoverished, desperate individuals who would chance death to achieve a better life. Glaringly obvious is the futility and madness of building a wall along the border, a xenophobic symbol of our failure of imagination and compassion, a dividing line between two countries who are at peace and who have strong economic and cultural ties. The ease of bypassing such a structure, the negative effects it has on the population and environment, the erosion of civil liberties it creates even for citizens, and its insurmountable costs far outweigh its meager benefits. Porous borders are certainly not in the interest of national security - it’s only reasonable that a nation would want to know who is entering their territory - yet using paramilitary force against the poor and helpless, people whose realistic goal is to get a job scrubbing toilets, is a byproduct of American prejudice and a nation’s misplaced fear and anger. The United States is not a victim of these migrant “criminals,” but all are victims of a broken immigration system that values “zero tolerance” and rule of law over reason, understanding, and basic humanitarianism.
January 2, 2025
This book was a hard read. It was written in 2010 but the stories are still relevant. Regan does a great job of telling stories from different people at the border: the local Mexican border townspeople, the migrants, the American border towns people, the border patrol agents, the humanitarian group No More Deaths volunteers, the local police, the US community watchers, the doctors of the hospitals, the mortician who has been overwhelmed with migrant deaths and the families who have accumulated to American society years after immigration. In her story telling, Regan shows the complexity of the border crisis and perspectives of all parties involved. She explains the local and state politics, and the effect that the NAFTA had on the Mexican economy.
February 19, 2024
Although this book was written almost 15 years ago and policies have shifted (especially post Trump era) its themes and heartbreak still ring true today. The author was able to give witness to experiences on all sides of the border, from migrants to border patrol agents to mutual aid volunteers, giving the reader a chance to humanize the diverse characters within the pages. I def cried
September 29, 2023
Regan provided insight into the state of immigration at the Mexican-US border from roughly 2000-2010. So many of these stories are absolutely heartbreaking. I also didn’t realize the extent of border walls that existed by the end of the Bush administration. It makes the Trump platform that much more obsolete and cruel since the wall largely already existed and only acts to corral human beings into more dangerous environments and to interrupt important ecological processes.
March 26, 2014
Margaret Regan is a Tucson, Arizona-based writer and perhaps because she lives there, writing a book about immigration, or in this case, illegal immigration south of the border, is a natural choice. It is a subject that she has written about regularly in her career. She begins the book with a prologue--depicting the death of fourteen year old Josseline in prime Sonoran desert--a creative decision for shaping the arc of her stories. Her recounting this particular story is an effective device, enticing the reader to read further and thus setting the stage for the largely tragic and frequently harrowing stories of men, women, and children from Latin America trying to make it to the United States. She is believable when she says that Josseline's story is one that she finds one of the most unforgettable of all the ones she has seen. She travels to and from the border with these people, rides with law enforcement officers as they go about the unenviable task of capturing those that try to make it. She describes in painstaking detail how these groups start their journey, shacking in dirty casas de huespedes, trekking through treacherous terrain in the dark, in extreme heat or cold, constantly avoiding the federales and then the Border Patrol, or their minds, the dreaded migra as they step foot on U.S. territory, at the same time putting their blind trust and their hard earned or borrowed money to the hardened and often times nefarious coyotes.
Her immigration stories carries more potency when she talks of names, faces,and detailed characterizations of who these people are and why they flee the places where they come from. One is able to identify and can ostensibly share the pain of these people. She is even more effective when she writes that she herself comes from an immigrant family, granted not from America's neighbors, but from Ireland, where a large influx of the Irish came to American shores a century before. Writing this bit of personal background elicits in the reader a certain ownership to the stories she tells.
Where I find the book weakens is when she reports immigration statistics that she has researched from various sources, including those from nonprofit organizations whose mission is to assist these border migrants. Statistical figures are spread through out the book. In the beginning, these are necessary but I found them cumbersome and repetitious as I could not figure out if she has reported these numbers on more than one occasion. Such reporting made the book somewhat messy if the intent is to render appropriate justification for, say, immigration reform, or even simply, for stoking good relations between the U.S. and its neighbors to the south.
Arguably, this is a pro-immigration book and those who are against immigration will not be sufficiently impressed. They would think it might be propagandistic, which perhaps, Regan will contend is far from what she intends to do if she is to be authentic to her journalistic craft. But stories of this nature will always provoke odd if not entirely negative reactions from some quarters. The issue of immigration in the U.S. is fraught with political, social and cultural traps, very difficult to disentangle particularly as the country grapples with what ought to be done truly and honestly about it.
Her immigration stories carries more potency when she talks of names, faces,and detailed characterizations of who these people are and why they flee the places where they come from. One is able to identify and can ostensibly share the pain of these people. She is even more effective when she writes that she herself comes from an immigrant family, granted not from America's neighbors, but from Ireland, where a large influx of the Irish came to American shores a century before. Writing this bit of personal background elicits in the reader a certain ownership to the stories she tells.
Where I find the book weakens is when she reports immigration statistics that she has researched from various sources, including those from nonprofit organizations whose mission is to assist these border migrants. Statistical figures are spread through out the book. In the beginning, these are necessary but I found them cumbersome and repetitious as I could not figure out if she has reported these numbers on more than one occasion. Such reporting made the book somewhat messy if the intent is to render appropriate justification for, say, immigration reform, or even simply, for stoking good relations between the U.S. and its neighbors to the south.
Arguably, this is a pro-immigration book and those who are against immigration will not be sufficiently impressed. They would think it might be propagandistic, which perhaps, Regan will contend is far from what she intends to do if she is to be authentic to her journalistic craft. But stories of this nature will always provoke odd if not entirely negative reactions from some quarters. The issue of immigration in the U.S. is fraught with political, social and cultural traps, very difficult to disentangle particularly as the country grapples with what ought to be done truly and honestly about it.
September 8, 2018
The subtitle of The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands aroused my interest. Although published in 2010, this book’s twelve portraits not only pertain to current issues but also provide a journalist's balanced, in-depth background for the discussion of immigration policy and practices.
For example, the bluster about building a wall across the entire border with Mexico? Lessons could be learned from “The Great Wall of Arizona,” fourteen feet high, completed in 2008. It may sound like a great idea to someone living in Omaha, but those who live nearby say it’s an ugly, environmental nightmare that doesn’t prevent migrants from inventing ways to climb over it.
Another example—detention centers and the separation of families. A young woman who had graduated from a Tucson high school had a job as a counter server at Panda Express, where she worked while her mother kept her 8-month-old baby boy during the day. Along with ten other low-wage workers, she was rounded up in a morning raid by the state police. Her mistake was having asked for food stamps and state health care for her baby. This exposed her as someone who, during her ten years in Arizona, had never acquired legal status. The eleven workers, charged with using fake identification, were charged with a felony, which made them ineligible for bail. Months later, this young woman rejoined her family, but by this time, her little boy no longer recognized her, didn’t trust her, and was clinging to his grandmother.
As for this book’s title, migrants who cross the border risk death from exposure to extreme temperatures and from injury in hiking for days across the merciless desert. Hundreds die there every year. Some aren’t discovered until their remains have been reduced to a sun-bleached skeleton. The bodies of others are taken to a morgue in Tucson. So many came one summer that the pathologist had to rent a refrigerated truck for the overflow of bodies. Yet each one is treated respectfully, and when possible, the remains are returned to the family.
Shortly after I finished reading The Death of Josseline, I received an email announcement about coffee produced by “hardworking, smallholder farmers” who receive “a strong up-front price for their beans and a portion of the profits.” I called Lutheran World Relief and ordered a couple of bags. Economic injustice, aggravated by NAFTA, impels desperate farmers to leave Central America and Mexico and to risk their lives for the chance to make a decent living. If paying postage for my coffee will help one of them, it’s the least I can do.
If you can find a copy of The Death of Josseline, I highly recommend it. Author Sandra Cisneros said, “This book should be required reading for everyone.” I agree.
January 6, 2017
Let me preface my review by saying that I loved The Devil's Highway, and it made me evaluate assumptions that I didn't even realize I had about immigration. Regan makes a reference to that book in this story. And what a story this is. Beginning with 14 year old Josseline's ill fated attempt to cross the border, Regan regales us with other tales of failed and successful border passings. She interviewed vigilantes, border patrol agents, Native American tribe members, migrants, and human rights groups to compile these narratives. Each chapter provides a separate story, but the entire book is interconnected as Regan returns to topics (and stories) again and again. Some of these accounts are absolutely heartbreaking. Only once did I struggle to find compassion for one of the sad sagas. This book compelled me to evaluate my beliefs, research the facts, and mull over the dilemma of illegal immigrants. I use that phrase on purpose as I am well aware of the more PC use of undocumented persons. I'm tired of using PC terminology to "fix" a problem.
Regan offers no solutions to the dilemma we face with illegal crossings. Rather, she paints a very human landscape of why desperately poor people are willing to risk everything, including their lives, to come to America. This book focuses on the Tucson area of Arizona where almost 1600 people lost their lives from 2001 - 2009 when border cities were restricted. (Yes, we actually have a wall that covers more area than one probably realizes.)
In the hotbed of immigration talk that surrounded the 2016 presidential elections, this book provides clarity to the confusing jumble of facts and opinions. I was surprised by some factors I never considered such as the environmental impact of the wall, the controversy surrounding Native American land and their rights on that land when it includes acres of the "killing fields" for border crossings, and Homeland Security's influence in the area. The money made from these poor people's plights is disgusting (as is the revenge some take), but it's also not fair to expect certain states or counties in states to bear medical and transportation costs. It's all such a conundrum. Obviously, we need to look at our immigration laws and consider different types and labor levels for immigration.
I found the book slow reading for the first 1/2, but I grew accustomed to the style, and read the last 1/2 quickly.
Regan offers no solutions to the dilemma we face with illegal crossings. Rather, she paints a very human landscape of why desperately poor people are willing to risk everything, including their lives, to come to America. This book focuses on the Tucson area of Arizona where almost 1600 people lost their lives from 2001 - 2009 when border cities were restricted. (Yes, we actually have a wall that covers more area than one probably realizes.)
In the hotbed of immigration talk that surrounded the 2016 presidential elections, this book provides clarity to the confusing jumble of facts and opinions. I was surprised by some factors I never considered such as the environmental impact of the wall, the controversy surrounding Native American land and their rights on that land when it includes acres of the "killing fields" for border crossings, and Homeland Security's influence in the area. The money made from these poor people's plights is disgusting (as is the revenge some take), but it's also not fair to expect certain states or counties in states to bear medical and transportation costs. It's all such a conundrum. Obviously, we need to look at our immigration laws and consider different types and labor levels for immigration.
I found the book slow reading for the first 1/2, but I grew accustomed to the style, and read the last 1/2 quickly.
July 17, 2011
Margaret Regan’s “The Death of Josseline” is a fine piece of reporting about a humanitarian crisis in the nation’s backyard. It would make a fine bookend to Ted Conover’s brilliant “Coyotes,” first published in 1987. Like Conover, Regan puts faces and names to the ongoing dramas inside the border-crossing zone, primarily the Arizona border around Tucson. It’s clear where Regan’s sympathies lie, with the “wretched of the earth” being “criminalized for their poverty.” But she takes an unflinching look at the “mafia” that exploit migrants on the Mexican side of the border, and she rides along and shows us up close the border agents, who also work in rugged, extreme conditions and who are shown, quite simply, just doing their job. There are a wide variety of people who are key players in this ongoing drama and Regan writes thoughtful portraits of them all. This is a human drama, Regan is saying, not something political or theoretical in the halls of Congress. Regan has a beautiful writing style and a keen eye for details. “On our hike, the farther into the wilderness we went, the more evidence we found of recent human travelers. A Santa Nino de Atocha water bottle—a popular migrant item, bearing the image of the boy Jesus as a pilgrim, dressed for travel in hat and cloak—was fresh and pliable. On a hilltop we discovered an active windmill, watched over by a herd of placid white cows, where migrants could easily pump out fresh water if they could get to the top.” Due to changing economic conditions in the United States and Mexico—changes that are reducing the relative flood of immigrants to a trickle—the crisis along the border may be abating in summer of 2011. One can only assume many immigrants are still making the run and one can only assume that many are running into life-threatening, and no doubt tragic, situations. Read “The Death of Josseline” for a desert-level view of this major policy issue. As with the debate in Washington, it’s hard to believe we can’t do better on behalf of the human lives right here in our midst.
May 21, 2012
For most of us, we talk about immigration when we discuss our genealogical roots. We all came from somewhere - France, Ireland, England, Mexico, Honduras, etc. For many of us that trek was made by our ancestors as long ago as 400 years. For others, it was made in the last 10 years. The majority of us can boast about the new life that our ancestors carved out for us by immigrating to America. For others it is a story of hardship, prejudice, and even death. Margaret Regan, a noted journalist who speaks about her father's Irish heritage, is the author of The Death of Josseline a story about the immigration issues between Mexico and Arizona. She openly and honestly reports about the costs, both in dollars (the cost of patroling the border, deporting the immigrants, and fencing the border) and lives (the number of lives lost is parallel to the temperature), that immigration plays upon the peoples and economies along the border between Mexico and Arizona.
Regan tells the stories from interviews with Border Patrol Agents, activists, residents, and immigrants. She shows the horrors for the immigrants who pay thousands of dollars to be brought to America and then to be left to die in the desert or, for some women, to be raped by the coyotes (men who bring the immigrants across the border). She tells of the separation of family members when deported and the invasion onto American properties by the American government in the name of homeland security. Regan educates readers in a straightforward and informative manner. I would encourage anyone interested in learning about the Mexico-Arizona border and the issue of immigration in that area to read Regan's book.
Reading group guide - www.beacon.org/Josseline
I read this book as part of the requirement for the United Methodist Reading Program.
Regan tells the stories from interviews with Border Patrol Agents, activists, residents, and immigrants. She shows the horrors for the immigrants who pay thousands of dollars to be brought to America and then to be left to die in the desert or, for some women, to be raped by the coyotes (men who bring the immigrants across the border). She tells of the separation of family members when deported and the invasion onto American properties by the American government in the name of homeland security. Regan educates readers in a straightforward and informative manner. I would encourage anyone interested in learning about the Mexico-Arizona border and the issue of immigration in that area to read Regan's book.
Reading group guide - www.beacon.org/Josseline
I read this book as part of the requirement for the United Methodist Reading Program.
January 8, 2015
A great read that puts a human face, names, and stories of desperation and dreams to just "numbers" or "statistics". Its easy to lump Mexican and Central American immigrants into stereotypes not knowing or wanting to know the why behind their sacrifices and dangerous risks for so many who simply just want to feed their families. Its easy to also point fingers to the problems of overcrowded schools, hospitals, resources and increased taxes from the immigrants without remembering that we are all descendants of immigrants ourselves. When I think about my own who came from Europe and Mexico way back before border control, I think about their sacrifice, not knowing the culture, the language, the $2 in their pocket and the clothes on their backs, and with a lot of dreams. It comes down to the very basic word of survival. This was an eye opener and the question of: do we let them all in and watch our taxes go up to support them, or do we close the gates and tell them to survive in their own country? What would Christ have done? Most of them want to learn English, become voting, tax-paying citizens, they want to have a job to support their families, they want to be involved in their children's schools and communities. Their dreams for a better life for them and their children are not unlike our own.
March 5, 2012
A great book for a book club discussion.
Margaret Regan puts a human face on the information she collected during a decade of reporting for the Tucson Weekly. She introduces readers to Mexicans and Central Americans who were sent back to Mexico after being arrested for entering Arizona illegally and others who have moved to a border city to find work so they can support their families. She hikes with volunteers who leave food and water on desert trails for migrants to find and use GPS to map the trails most frequently travelled. She accompanies Border Patrol on calls to find migrants who have been reported missing and speaks with Arizona residents who live with, and environmentalists who are unhappy about, the 14-foot wall erected on the Arizona-Sonora border.
She dedicates a chapter to each pair of border cities that lie within the sector--Douglas, Arizona and Agua Preita, Sonora; Sasabe, Arizona and Sasabe, Sonora; Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora--and writes candidly about the poverty, greed, and charity she's seen.
Margaret Regan puts a human face on the information she collected during a decade of reporting for the Tucson Weekly. She introduces readers to Mexicans and Central Americans who were sent back to Mexico after being arrested for entering Arizona illegally and others who have moved to a border city to find work so they can support their families. She hikes with volunteers who leave food and water on desert trails for migrants to find and use GPS to map the trails most frequently travelled. She accompanies Border Patrol on calls to find migrants who have been reported missing and speaks with Arizona residents who live with, and environmentalists who are unhappy about, the 14-foot wall erected on the Arizona-Sonora border.
She dedicates a chapter to each pair of border cities that lie within the sector--Douglas, Arizona and Agua Preita, Sonora; Sasabe, Arizona and Sasabe, Sonora; Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora--and writes candidly about the poverty, greed, and charity she's seen.
February 28, 2011
I read this book for a book discussion group. It puts a human face on the many aspects of the so-called "illegal immigration" situation in the southwest. It tells the true stories of some of the thousands of undocumented workers who have risked (and in too many cases, lost) their lives trying to cross the Arizona desert and enter the U.S. in hopes of finding a job so they can feed their families. Their stories, as well as the stories of the many humanitarians trying to help them, the rescuers, and the border agents, show the depth and magnitude of this incredible phenomenon. There were also stories of the border towns in Mexico and how this phenomenon has affected them, and I found that to be very interesting and illuminating. I really enjoyed the book, and learned a lot from it. It is really hard to accept the fact that our nation has allowed a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude to happen. Highly recommended.
May 30, 2013
I read this a couple of years ago for a UU Bookgroup. Since it has been so long since I read it, I don't really remember the details, but I can't make myself go back and re-read it. What I do remember is that it was one of the more biased, hyperbolic pieces of propaganda I've read in a long time. The author is clearly biased; the emigrants are saints while the US gov't and those enforcing the laws are evil. The author also really indulges in hyperbole. At one point she seems to be comparing the immigration laws to the Cambodian Killing Fields. So, between the fact that I deeply disagree with the author's basic premise and her over the top writing style, I had a really hard time finishing this book. I absolutely believe that immigration reform is an important discussion that we, as a nation, need to be having. I just don't think this book adds anything real to the discussion and may actually be detrimental to an open honest discussion of immigration reform.
December 30, 2011
Margaret Regan does it right in The Death of Josseline. She explores many different but interconnected aspects (humanitarian, political, economic, environmental, legal, medical...) of the crisis on the US/Mexico border. Regan accomplishes this while maintaining journalistic and social integrity and fulfilling a commitment to fairly represent the individual realities and perspectives of several undocumented immigrants and documented US citizens.
This kind of measured, well-informed, and at times heartbreaking nonfiction is inspiring. With books like this there are no excuses for ignorance or complacency; these stories (realities!) are pressing and they are very real and they demand more of us. With more writers like Regan I imagine we would have a more engaged citizenry and a much more welcoming & effective politics.
This kind of measured, well-informed, and at times heartbreaking nonfiction is inspiring. With books like this there are no excuses for ignorance or complacency; these stories (realities!) are pressing and they are very real and they demand more of us. With more writers like Regan I imagine we would have a more engaged citizenry and a much more welcoming & effective politics.
November 3, 2014
I generally live by the theory that most errors can be blamed not on a conspiracy, but on just plain incompetency. This book, I believe, was written to prove me wrong.
How Congress can continue to fund the construction of a wall dividing the border between the United States and it's friendly neighbor to the south - a wall which does not prevent the migration of people, but does prevent the migration of animals - for an annual outlay of $775 million dollars annually, is just unconscionable.
The Death of Josseline is very minimally about Josselyne Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros (1994-2008), but sheds a light on everything from environment and animal cruelty to Border Patrol policies and complaints from the Arizona residents while interviewing and documenting the crossing of Mexican (and other) migrants who risk their lives daily.
How Congress can continue to fund the construction of a wall dividing the border between the United States and it's friendly neighbor to the south - a wall which does not prevent the migration of people, but does prevent the migration of animals - for an annual outlay of $775 million dollars annually, is just unconscionable.
The Death of Josseline is very minimally about Josselyne Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros (1994-2008), but sheds a light on everything from environment and animal cruelty to Border Patrol policies and complaints from the Arizona residents while interviewing and documenting the crossing of Mexican (and other) migrants who risk their lives daily.
September 3, 2013
"The Death of Josseline" is a must read for every person who wishes to understand the complicated issue of immigration. Josseline was a teenage girl who died out in the desert while trying to cross the border and reach her mother in Los Angeles. Josseline's story is just one of the many, and although the focus of the stories is on the Arizona Borderlands, the stories represent problems facing the U.S. and other countries. Author Margaret Regan does an excellent job at presenting all viewpoints — border patrol officers,, residents living in Arizona and Mexico along the border, humanitarian groups, border crossing migrants, Native Americans living on reservations close to the border, and illegal immigrants living and working in the U.S.
As an Arizona resident, reading this book felt like I was reading about my own neighborhood and neighbors.
As an Arizona resident, reading this book felt like I was reading about my own neighborhood and neighbors.
October 11, 2015
The very title of this work of journalism reminds us that each migrant crossing a border is a human being, who has been brought into the world and given a name. Regan does a thorough job of presenting a decade of deaths and border crossings specifically in Arizona, woven together with developments in immigration politics and policies state and nation-wide. She interviews those who cross, those who live along the border on both sides, and those who are there to enforce the increasingly visible line between the US and Mexico. Anyone who says that building a wall is the answer to the "problem" of illegal immigration in our country should dig a little deeper. The issue is incredibly complex, as are the reasons people hold for crossing over in spite of the obvious risks. An affecting and well-researched book.
November 19, 2016
In picking up The Death of Josseline, it was clear to me that the author has a point of view that she prefers and throughout the presentation of information it is maintained. The author presents her information clearly, with a good deal of research that she has done. With touching clarity, she provides insight into the human drama that continues to plague the south western states. There are points where the writing gets repetitive, and the statistics are not well threaded in the narratives and are rather jarringly presented. The view of the author remains constant, which limits the affect of her attempt at a balanced presentation. In general I am going to say that the book got me thinking on some issues, and presented a lot of sympathetic stories, but I really didn't enjoy this read.
September 30, 2010
I just finished reading this book after coming back from the borderlands volunteering with the group No More Deaths. Reading the stories of real people whose lives are impacted by the border really brings home the insanity of u.s. border policies and the tragedies that occur because of them. From little girls dying in the desert to mothers whose young children forget who they are while they're locked up in a detention center, to families ripped apart and people reluctantly ripped from their homes because they find it impossible to make a living without leaving, to the way people are criminalized for being poor workers. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a picture of the border from the eyes of those most impacted by it.
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