The book draws on interviews with Border Patrol Agents and ICE Deportation Officers--most of whom are Mexican Americans from the border region--to examine the production of bureaucratic indifference on the frontline of immigration control.
Self-promo: Mutuality in El Barrio: Stories of the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service (Fordham UP, May 2024). About a small non-profit in El Barrio in NYC that works with Mexican immigrant families. This book celebrates the strengths that immigrant women bring with them to the US. And thanks for the work you do here--it's invaluable! https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531506438/mutuality-in-el-barrio/
I’m going to cheat and recommend a novel that was written several years ago - Happiness, by Aminatta Forna. Written in the wake of Brexit, it’s a love letter to London told almost exclusively through the eyes of immigrants. The two main characters are a wildlife biologist, in London to study urban foxes, and a psychiatrist from Ghana who specializes in PTSD and conflict trauma, preparing the keynote address for a conference.
Roberto Tejada, Carbonate of Copper: Poems (Fordham University Press, 2025).
The poems in Carbonate of Copper stage scenes adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border and to the realities of migration warped by jarring political vitriol, bearing witness to past and present-day hazards, and sorrows wagered by those in search of asylum. So enabled, the poems make visible not only the infrastructure of militarized surveillance and its detention complex but also the aspiration to justice and mercy and the resilient self-organized order of time for migrants seeking human dignity while awaiting passage to the other side of the dividing line.
Both of Jason de León’s books: The Land of Open Graves and Soldiers and Kings
These are fantastic texts about the migrant trail and migrant smugglers, respectively, written by an anthropologist with a great sense of humor and an extremely sharp pen
Undocumented Saints (William A. Calvo-Quirós)
Fascinating window into spirituality and migration that also illuminates important slices of history on the U.S. Mexico border
Undocumented Politics (Abigail Leslie Andrews)
If I had to recommend one book about immigration, it would be this one. A rigorous and compelling sociological rendering of two indigenous Oaxacan villages and the very divergent outcomes for folks who migrate to immigrant enclaves in North County, San Diego versus Los Angeles. Unlike many books about immigration, gender is a central inquiry.
Empire of Borders (Todd Miller)
A very readable investigation of the global political economy of borders and border technology, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Palestine and beyond.
Queer and Trans Migrations (Eithne Luibhéid and Karma R. Chávez, Eds.)
A highly thought-provoking anthology that upends a lot of the immigrants’ rights movement’s prevailing assumptions about “deserving” immigrants and how U.S. immigration policy ought to be.
The Faraway Brothers (Lauren Markham)
A helpful narrative for folks trying to understand the anatomy of an unaccompanied kid’s immigration journey and legal case, focusing on two twin boys who leave for the U.S. from El Salvador
Kevin Kenny and Maddalena Marinari, Rituals of Migration: Italians and Irish on the Move (New York University Press, 2025).
Rituals of Migration offers snapshots of Italian and Irish migrants on the move from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. The essays in this volume examine particular moments, actions, sentiments, and material objects in the process of migration—at the point of departure, in transit, and in the process of return. By examining what people did, thought, felt, and packed on the eve of their departures, during their journeys, and when returning to their homelands, Rituals of Migration reveals how everyone involved in the immigration process— including the migrants themselves, the families they left behind, and those in charge of regulating their mobility—has tried to make sense of a process filled with peril, uncertainty, excitement, and opportunity.
* (2023 title not yet featured) Kevin Kenny, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023)
Offering an new interpretation that ranges across a century of national history, this book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped American immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the context of westward imperial expansion.
Hi Austin - may I mention my own co-authored (with Deirdre Conlon) forthcoming book? Immigration Detention Inc: the Big Business of Locking Up Migrants (Pluto Press) will be out in June! It traces the vast web of stakeholders making money off of detention and driving more growth. https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349466/immigration-detention-inc/
Would you consider putting your list on Storygraph as well for those of us who have left Amazon-owned Goodreads?
Actually I already did that! See the previous book post linked above for a link to the Storygraph book list. :)
Have you already included Sarah Towle's "Crossing the Line" in your list? https://sarahtowle.com
Hello! I am very excited to share that my book Bordering on Indifference: Immigration Agents Negotiating Race and Morality, is now available for pre-order with a 30% discount with code: P327 from the publisher's website. The introduction is available for free. Link: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691262086/bordering-on-indifference?srsltid=AfmBOorxE_KOU8ZyO7a5TeMRFzbHZ3NsB57OrrRcPbOnjnH8VUFKNUnI
The book draws on interviews with Border Patrol Agents and ICE Deportation Officers--most of whom are Mexican Americans from the border region--to examine the production of bureaucratic indifference on the frontline of immigration control.
Thank you so much,
Irene
Self-promo: Mutuality in El Barrio: Stories of the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service (Fordham UP, May 2024). About a small non-profit in El Barrio in NYC that works with Mexican immigrant families. This book celebrates the strengths that immigrant women bring with them to the US. And thanks for the work you do here--it's invaluable! https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531506438/mutuality-in-el-barrio/
I’m going to cheat and recommend a novel that was written several years ago - Happiness, by Aminatta Forna. Written in the wake of Brexit, it’s a love letter to London told almost exclusively through the eyes of immigrants. The two main characters are a wildlife biologist, in London to study urban foxes, and a psychiatrist from Ghana who specializes in PTSD and conflict trauma, preparing the keynote address for a conference.
Self promo :) Migrant Justice in the Age of Removal. Jacob Chamberlain.
but I also second Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (its good enough for a 2023 exception!)
Did you add "Campeón Gabacho/Gringo Champion" by Aura Xilonen already?
I'll have to check but if it's not there, it will be!
It's going to be a movie here pretty soon I think—Alfonso Cuarón directing! https://thecinemaholic.com/gringo-champion-filming/
Technocolonialism. When Technology for Good is Harmful
by Mirca Madianou
Roberto Tejada, Carbonate of Copper: Poems (Fordham University Press, 2025).
The poems in Carbonate of Copper stage scenes adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border and to the realities of migration warped by jarring political vitriol, bearing witness to past and present-day hazards, and sorrows wagered by those in search of asylum. So enabled, the poems make visible not only the infrastructure of militarized surveillance and its detention complex but also the aspiration to justice and mercy and the resilient self-organized order of time for migrants seeking human dignity while awaiting passage to the other side of the dividing line.
My recommendations:
Both of Jason de León’s books: The Land of Open Graves and Soldiers and Kings
These are fantastic texts about the migrant trail and migrant smugglers, respectively, written by an anthropologist with a great sense of humor and an extremely sharp pen
Undocumented Saints (William A. Calvo-Quirós)
Fascinating window into spirituality and migration that also illuminates important slices of history on the U.S. Mexico border
Undocumented Politics (Abigail Leslie Andrews)
If I had to recommend one book about immigration, it would be this one. A rigorous and compelling sociological rendering of two indigenous Oaxacan villages and the very divergent outcomes for folks who migrate to immigrant enclaves in North County, San Diego versus Los Angeles. Unlike many books about immigration, gender is a central inquiry.
Empire of Borders (Todd Miller)
A very readable investigation of the global political economy of borders and border technology, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Palestine and beyond.
Queer and Trans Migrations (Eithne Luibhéid and Karma R. Chávez, Eds.)
A highly thought-provoking anthology that upends a lot of the immigrants’ rights movement’s prevailing assumptions about “deserving” immigrants and how U.S. immigration policy ought to be.
The Faraway Brothers (Lauren Markham)
A helpful narrative for folks trying to understand the anatomy of an unaccompanied kid’s immigration journey and legal case, focusing on two twin boys who leave for the U.S. from El Salvador
Jason de Leon is amazing. And the Faraway Brothers was so good. Those are the kids I work with (unaccompanied teenagers). Also liked Border Hacker.
Really want to read Border Hacker! And cheers to you - I'm about to begin a similar job
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Ian Delahanty, Embracing Emancipation: A Transatlantic History of Irish Americans, Slavery, and the American Union (Fordham University Press, 2024).
Brianna Nofil, The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration (Prineceton University Press, 2024).
Annelise Shrout, Aiding Ireland: The Great Famine and the Rise of Transnational Philanthropy
(New York University Press, 2024).
Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship (UNC Press, 2024)
Kevin Kenny and Maddalena Marinari, Rituals of Migration: Italians and Irish on the Move (New York University Press, 2025).
Rituals of Migration offers snapshots of Italian and Irish migrants on the move from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. The essays in this volume examine particular moments, actions, sentiments, and material objects in the process of migration—at the point of departure, in transit, and in the process of return. By examining what people did, thought, felt, and packed on the eve of their departures, during their journeys, and when returning to their homelands, Rituals of Migration reveals how everyone involved in the immigration process— including the migrants themselves, the families they left behind, and those in charge of regulating their mobility—has tried to make sense of a process filled with peril, uncertainty, excitement, and opportunity.
* (2023 title not yet featured) Kevin Kenny, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023)
Offering an new interpretation that ranges across a century of national history, this book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped American immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the context of westward imperial expansion.
Hi Austin - may I mention my own co-authored (with Deirdre Conlon) forthcoming book? Immigration Detention Inc: the Big Business of Locking Up Migrants (Pluto Press) will be out in June! It traces the vast web of stakeholders making money off of detention and driving more growth. https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349466/immigration-detention-inc/
Migrating to Prison: America's Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández
"The Cost Of Being Undocumented" by Alix Dick <3
These are all 2024 books, but I didn't see them on your previous list.
The Case for Open Borders, Jonathan Washington,
My Side of the River, Elizabeth Gutierrez,
The Undocumented Americans, Karla Conejo Villavicencio,
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, Jonthan Blitzer
I recommend the book Solito