My Conversation with Reece Jones about His New Book “Nobody is Protected” (Video Available)
Yesterday evening, Reece Jones and I sat down to talk about his new book “Nobody is Protected” at his book launch event hosted by Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. I encourage you to get (and read) his book, because it’s a compelling deep dive into the Border Patrol, one of the most significant (and concerning) law enforcement agencies in the country.
We touched on many of the main themes of his book in our discussion, including the troubling history of why civil rights protections don’t exist in the same way along the border, how much of Border Patrol’s activity actually has nothing at all to do with immigration and border enforcement, and why the agency is now also getting involved in policing in places far from the border. I, for one, finished Reece’s book seeing lots of worrying connections between Border Patrol’s expansive enforcement vision for itself and the kind of big data policing that I’ve been writing about with respect to ICE’s expansion of electronic monitoring.
Just for context: Dr. Reece Jones (@ReeceJonesUH) is professor of geography and current chair of the geography department at The University of Hawaiʻi - Mānoa. If you’re waiting on his latest book to arrive in the mail, I would encourage you to check out his other influential works including:
Violent Borders, an examination of the deadly effects of borders around the world.
Open Borders, an edited volume of very thoughtful critiques of borders from various moral, historical, and geographical perspectives.
And of course, White Borders, a close critical reading of the role that racism has played (and continues to play) in shaping the US immigration system.
All of Reece’s books are thoughtfully written and very accessible despite being richly informed by his scholarly work.
Politics and Prose is one of my favorite bookstores, so being a part of the event was a special experience for me. Moreover, it’s rare to see two geographers together in a non-geography space like this, so hopefully this talk also gives viewers some perspective on the exciting and relevant field of human geography.
If you weren’t able to join us, you can watch or listen to that video on YouTube below. There are no real visuals, so you could easily treat this like a podcast. You can purchase his book directly from the publisher Counterpoint Press.
Finally, Matthew Archambeau, Esq., will never let me hear the end of it if I don’t also mention that Reece talked about this new book recently—and FIRST!—with king-makers Stephen Robbins and Matthew Archambeau, hosts of the immigration podcast Redirect. Click here for the link to the podcast.
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