Bibliography | Crossing the Line
Books
Abadinsky, Howard. Organized Crime. Cengage Learning, January 2016.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, January 2010.
Anderson, Carol. The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Bloomsbury Publishing, Jun 2021.
Andrews, Kehinde. The Psychosis of Whiteness: Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World. Allen Lane, Sept 2023.
Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization. Common Courage Press, 2000.
Beltrán, Cristina. Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy. University of Minnesota Press, August 2020.
Betts, Alexander, and Paul Collier. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Penguin, May 2018.
Blitzer, Jonathan. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis. Penguin Press, Jan 2024.
Bobrow-Strain, Aaron. The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, April 2019.
Boullosa, Carmen and Mike Wallace. A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War.” OR Books, 2015.
Bowden, Peg. A Land of Hard Edges Serving: the Front Lines of the Border. Peer Publishing, July 2014.
Briggs, Laura. Taking Children: A History of American Terror. University of California Press, August 2021.
Budd, Jenn. Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol Agent to Immigrant Rights. Heliotrope Books, June 2022.
Burns, Ken. The U.S. and the Holocaust. PBS.org. September 2022.
Butler, Major General Smedley. War is a Racket. Round Table Press,1935.
Cantú, Francisco. The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border. New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
Castañeda, Michelle, with illustrations by Molly Crabapple. Disappearing Rooms: The Hidden Theaters of Immigration Law. Duke University Press, 2023.
Chapman, Peter. Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World. Canongate Books, 2007; 2022.
Chomsky, Aviva. Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration. Beacon Press, April 2021.
Chomsky, Aviva. "They Take Our Jobs!": and 20 Other Myths about Immigration. Beacon Press, April 2018.
Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla. The Undocumented Americans. Random House Publishing Group, March 2020.
Correa-Cabrera, Guadalupe. Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico. University of Texas Press, Aug 2017.
Cowan, Leah. Border Nation: A Story of Migration. Pluto Press. March 2021.
Cox, Adam and Cristina M. Rodríguez. The President and Immigration Law. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Cruz, Rosarya Pablo & Julie Schwietert Collazo. The Book of Rosy: A Mother's Story of Separation at the Border. HarperCollins, June 2020.
Danner, Mark, The Massacre at El Mozote. Vintage, April 1994.
Davis, Julie Hirschfeld, and Michael D. Shear. Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration. Simon and Schuster, October 2019.
De León, Jason. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. University of California Press, October 2015.
del Bosque, Melissa. Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty. Harper Collins, September 2018.
Demarais, Agathe. Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests. Columbia University Press, November 2022.
Didion, Joan. Salvador. Granta, 1983.
Dudley, Steven. Reviewed Work: MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang. Hanover Square Press, September 2020.
Dunn, Timothy J. Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation that Remade Immigration Enforcement. University of Texas Press, 2009.
Eisenbrandt, Matt. Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice. Univ of California Press, January 2017.
Engstrom, David Wells. Presidential Decision Making Adrift: The Carter Administration and the Mariel Boatlift. Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
Espada, Martín. Floaters: Poems. WW Norton, 31 May 2022.
Farfá-Santos, Elizabeth. Undocumented Motherhood: Conversation on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing. University of Texas Press, October 2022.
Frey, John Carlos. Sand and Blood: America's Stealth War on the Mexico Border. Bold Type Books, June 2019.
Foucault, Michel. Alan Sheridan (Translator). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books, April 25, 1995.
Gibbler, John. To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War. City Lights Books, Spring/Summer 2011.
Gill, Lesley. The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas. Duke University Press, September 2004.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Second Revised and Updated Edition: Penguin Publishing Group, June 2022.
Goodman, Adam. The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants. Princeton University Press, May 2020.
Grande, Reyna. The Distance Between Us: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster, Sept 2016.
Grandin, Greg. Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. Picador: MacMillan USA, May 2006.
Grandin, Greg. The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. Metropolitan Books, March 2019.
Grillo, Ioan. Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels. Bloomsbury Publishing, February 2021.
Grillo, Ioan. El Narco: The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels. Bloomsbury Publishing, November 2012.
Guerrero, Jean. Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. HarperCollins Publishers, August 2021.
Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940. Vintage, June 1999.
Hansen, Tobin and María Engracia Robles Robles, Eds. Voices of the Border: Testimonios of Migration, Deportation, and Asylum. Georgetown University Press, February 2022.
Harbury, Jennifer. Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Compañeros and Compañeras. AK Press, 1994.
Harbury, Jennifer. Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala. Warner Books, January 1997.
Harbury, Jennifer. Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture. Beacon Press, 2005.
Hayden, Sally. My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route. HarperCollins UK, March 2022.
Hefner, Tony. Between the Fences: Before Guantánamo, there was the Port Isabel Service Processing Center. Seven Stories Press 1st Edition, Paperback, July 2010.
Hernandez Castillo, Marcelo. Children of the Land: A Memoir. HarperCollins: January 2020.
Hernandez, Zeke. The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers. MacMillan. St. Martin's Press, June 2024.
Jones, Reece. Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the United States, India, and Israel. Zed Books Ltd., July 2012.
Jones, Reece. Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States. Counterpoint Press, 2022.
Jones, Reece. Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move. Verso Books, Oct 2016.
Jones, Reece. White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall. Beacon Press, Oct 2021.
Kibbe, Pauline R. Latin Americans in Texas. University of New Mexico Press, 1947.
Kosnac, Hillary S., Wayne A. Cornelius, D. Alex Hughes, et al. One Step In and One Step Out: The Lived Experience of Immigrant Participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, January 2015.
Lovato, Roberto. Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas. HarperCollins, Sept 2020.
Luiselli, Valeria. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. HarperCollins UK, Oct 2017.
Luiselli, Valeria. Lost Children Archive. Knopf, February 2019.
Lytle Hernández, Kelly. Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire & Revolution in the Borderlands. W.W. Norton, 2022.
Lytle Hernández, Kelly. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. University of California Press, 2010.
Makuchi. Your Madness Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon. Ohio University Press, Feb 1999.
Mayers, Steven and Jonathan Freedman, Eds. Solito, Solita, Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America. Haymarket. April 2019.
McCoy, Alfred W. The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Colombia. University of Florida Press, 2nd Ed. Lawrence Hill Books, 2003.
McGirr, Lisa. The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State. WW Norton, November 2015.
Miller, Todd. Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security. City Lights Publishers, March 2014.
Miller, Todd. Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders. City Lights Books, April 2021.
Miller, Todd. Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border around the World, Verso Books. Aug 2019.
Miller, Todd. Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. City Lights Books, Aug 2017.
Morrison, Toni. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations. Alfred A. Knopf, February 2019.
Nayeri, Dina. The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You. Canongate Books, May 2019.
Nazario, Sonia. Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. Random House Publishing Group, Jan 2007.
Nevins, Joseph. Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid. City Lights Publishers, Dec 2013.
Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America – Updated Edition. Princeton University Press, April 2014.
Okporo, Edafe. Asylum: A Memoir and Manifesto. Simon & Schuster, 2022.
Olivares, Efrén. My Boy Will Die of Sorrow: A Memoir of Immigration from the Front Lines. Hachette Books, 2022.
Pace, James. Mother of Exiles: Interviews of Asylum Seekers at the Good Neighbor Settlement House, Brownsville, Texas. Angelus Artists Productions, Incorporated, Feb 2022.
Paley, Dawn. Drug War Capitalism. AK Press, 2014.
Payan, Tony. The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration, and Homeland Security. Praeger Security International, 2016.
Pérez-Bustillo, Camilo A. and Karla V. Hernándex Mares. Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America: Poverty, Forced Migration and Resistance in Mexico and Colombia. Haymarket Books, December 2017.
Regan, Margaret. The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderland., Beacon Press, Oct 2010.
Romo, David. Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez, 1893-1923. Cinco Puntos Press, 2005.
Rosas, Gilberto. Unsettling: The El Paso Massacre, Resurgent White Nationalism, and the US-Mexico Border. Johns Hopkins University Press, March 2023.
Samuels, Robert, and Toluse Olorunnipa. His Name is George Floud: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Penguin Books, May 2022.
Sands, Philippe. East West Street. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016.
Schrag, Philip G. Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America. University of California Press, Jan 2020.
Shah, Silky. Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. Haymarket Books, May 2024.
Sharpless, Rebecca A. Shackled: 92 Refugees Imprisoned on ICE Air. University of California Press, February 2024.
Sharma, Nandita. Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants. Duke University Press, Feb 2020.
Shukla, Mikesh, ed. The Good Immigrant. Unbound, Sept 2016.
Shull, Kristina, Detention Empire: Reagan's War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance, University of North Carolina Press, August 2022.
Slack, Jeremy. Deported to Death: How Drug Violence Is Changing Migration on the US–Mexico Border. University of California Press, July 2019.
Slack, Jeremy, Daniel E. Martínez and Scott Whiteford. The Shadow of the Wall: Violence and Migration on the U.S.-Mexico Border. University of Arizona Press, April 2018.
Smith, Benjamin T. The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade. WW Norton, Aug 2021.
Soboroff, Jacob. Separated: Inside an American Tragedy. HarperCollins, July 2020.
Solis, Octavio. Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border. City Lights Books, Oct 2018.
Starr, Kevin. Coast of Dreams: California On The Edge, 1990-2003, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Strickland, Patrick. The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands. Melville House, Feb 2022.
Swanson, Doug J. Cult of Glory, The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers, Viking, June 2020.
Tobar, Héctor. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino.” MacMillan, May 2023.
Tyx, Daniel Blue. Angry Tías: Cruelty and Compassion on the U.S.-Mexico Border, Strong Arm Press. April 2019.
Uribe Santibáñez, Irma L. Bolay. ateconqueso, December 2019.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Jan 1993.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story. Little Brown & Co, 2004.
Vargas, Jose Antonio. Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. HarperCollins, Sept 2018.
Vonk, Levi with Axel Kirschner. Border Hacker: A Tale of Treachery, Trafficking and Two Friends on the Run. Bold Type Books, 2022.
Walia, Harsha. Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. Haymarket Books, February 2021.
Washington, John. The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum and the US-Mexican Border and Beyond. VersoBooks, 2020.
Washington, John. The Case for Open Borders. Haymarket Books, Feb 2024.
Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Lies That Divide Us. Allen Lane, August 2020.
Woodward, Bob. Fear: Trump in the White House. Simon & Schuster, Sept 2018.
Zamora, Javier. Solita: A Memoir. Hogarth, Sept 2022.
films & documentaries
BORDERLAND | The Line Within exposes the profitable business of immigration and its human cost. Skylight: Pamela Yates, 2024.
Immigration Nation. A documentary looking inside the world of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Netflix Series. 2020.
Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis, with Jodie Goodwin and Charlene D’Cruz, among others. Director: Victoria Bruce. Executive Producer: Careen Shannon. Producer: Laura Seltzer-Duny.
No Más Bebés. The fight for reproductive rights after the sterilization of Mexican immigrant mothers in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Director: Renee Tajima-Peña, February 2016.
Oh Mercy—Searching for Hope in the Promised Land. Worldwide Documentaries.
Running to Stand Still: Migrants Search for Hope in the Promised Land. Worldwide Documentaries.
Shura, about the Samaritans of Green Valley, Arizona, and the group’s genesis. Directors David Damian Figueroa and Kayvon Derak Shanian. 2024.
Story 11 The Senate Speaks, How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories. January 2006: The House passes the toughest anti-amnesty, enforcement-only bill in history, known as the Sensenbrenner Bill, forcing the Senate to tackle the issue of immigration reform. Millions of people take to the streets as a markup begins. At last, a bi-partisan Kennedy-McCain bill goes to the Senate floor. But leaders in both parties betray their desire for an election issue, not a bill to enact much-needed social change. Directed and Produced by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini.
The Infiltrators. A rag-tag group of undocumented youth - Dreamers - deliberately get detained by Border Patrol in order to infiltrate a shadowy, for-profit detention center. Directed by Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera.
The Least of These explores one of the most controversial aspects of American immigration policy: family detention at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by CoreCivic, the largest for-private prison operator in the country — and world — right up there with GEO Group. Directors Clark Lyda and Jesse Lyda.
The Long Walk of Carlos Guerrero. The odyssey of survival of an undocumented New York City chef and a young girl from El Salvador, after they get stranded in the deserts of southern Arizona. Written and directed by Joseph Mathew.
The U.S. and the Holocaust explores the USA's response to the Holocaust, and how it challenged the ideals of democracy. Directors Sarah Botstein, Ken Burns, and Lynn Novick.
They Call Me the Cross Man (seen in preview) follows septuagenarian Alvaro Enciso, the subject of Crossing the Line’s Conclusion: Buried Dreams, as he transforms his grief into action, crafting and planting memorial crosses over time for those souls who have died in Arizona's treacherous Sonoran Desert—the deadliest border crossing in the world. Alvaro is slowly but surely turning the desert into an art installation and a monument to the great unknown dead—killed by US immigration policies
Where am I?, with Sister Norma Pimentel of Catholic Charities, Brownsville, Texas Diocese. Worldwide Documentaries.
Witness at Tornillo follows 66-year-old Joshua Rubin from Brooklyn, NY, an activist who became a fixture of the #FamiliesBelongTogether protests. He helped draw national attention to the teen incarceration facilities in Tornillo, Texas, and Homestead, Florida, by bearing witness—what he defines as the “subversive act of seeing.” Carbon Trace Productions, 2020.
RECOMMENDED WEBSITES & NEWSLETTERS
The Border Chronicle, Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller report on the big issues challenging our region, such as climate change, economic inequality, government surveillance, and the rapid growth of the border security industrial complex.
Frontera Dispatch, HOPE Border Institute Newsletter
Immigration Impact, a project of the American Immigration Council
National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) newsletter and blog
Reveal, The Center for Investigative Reporting is an independent newsroom that offers the public groundbreaking storytelling that sparks action, improves lives, and protects our democracy by holding the powerful accountable.
Tales of Humanity from the Borderlands, where you’ll meet the humanitarians raising awareness about the walls that divide us.
The Marshall Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
WOLA News, Washington Office on Latin America: Advocacy for Human Rights