Cross-Border Immigration Between Mexico and the United States

The book’s primary thematic and narrative focus is to consider issues associated with cross-border migration between Mexico and the United States from two perspectives: that of someone who has been an officer in the Boarder Patrol (the author), and that of those whom the border patrol, and American law, attempt to keep from entering the United States illegally. Those individuals include the anonymous migrants whose stories the author briefly tells in Parts 1 and 2, and Jose, the migrant whose story is the specific, and far more detailed, focus of Part 3.

All three parts of the book develop these entwined narrative and thematic considerations in a variety of ways. There are word-snapshots of individual encounters between the author and his fellow officers; there are references to the history of the border and the laws surrounding how it can be crossed; and there...