13 Excellent books for understanding US Immigration history and policy

I know that there is a lot of activity and anxiety about the Trump Administration’s call for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. There is also some excellent responses to this threat, especially coming from organized affected community groups like Mijente, the Detention Watch Network, and No More Deaths working across the country.

In the Grand Rapids area there is the immigrant-led organization Movimiento Cosecha GR, and their partner group, GR Rapid Response to ICE. 

While it is important that we take action in the present to resist the threat of mass deportation, we need to recognize and come to terms with the history of US immigration policy. US immigration policy has always been rooted in white supremacy and xenophobia, plus the cruel and brutal US immigration policies have been historically bi-partisan. 

I put together these 13 books (there are lots more that I could add to this list) because I believe it is crucial that we come to terms with this history for a variety of reasons. However, the main reason is because we can’t abandon the undocumented immigrant community, the affected community, when Democrats occupy the White House. The Obama and Biden Administrations both deported ore immigrants than the first Trump Administration.

What follows are the titles of these 13 books, plus a brief description of what each book talks about.

Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition, by Silky Shah – The author has been a longtime organizer around immigrant justice issues and discusses why the immigrant justice movement needs an abolitionist framework moving forward.

All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It, by Daniel Devir – This book methodically documents the bi-partisan nature of anti-immigration policies in the US, especially since WWII.

Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence, edited by Mizue Aizeki, Matt Mahmoudi and Coline Schupfer – In this anthology, you will learn about all of the current technology being use to monitor and surveil immigrants across the globe and which corporations are profiting off of the cruelty of immigration policies worldwide.

Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security, By Todd Miller – The author of this book has done the best job of any writer to show how borders and immigration policy are tied to foreign policy and the Climate Crisis. People flee their countries for political, economic and increasingly climate reasons.

No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border, by Justin Akers Chacon and Mike Davis – The co-authors not only provide a framework for why we shouldn’t see people as illegal, they talk about the context, the reasons why so many people are crossing the US border from Mexico.

American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants, by Robert Bartholomew & Anja Reumschussel – This is an excellent book that looks at how numerous immigrant communities have been treated harshly throughout US history, based on the policies implemented over the past 250 years.

The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin – Radial Historian Greg Grandin challenges us in this book to look at how US expansionist practices has always determined borders and why they are rooted in an imperialist strategy.

They Take Our Jobs! And 20 Other Myths About Immigration, by Aviva Chomsky – This book methodically deconstructions the anti-immigrant talking points of the past 2 decades and provides hard data and analysis to counter these myths.

Undoing Border Imperialism, by Harsha Walia – A longtime organizer, Walia helps us understand how borders are inherently imperialist and how we can organize to undo border iperialism.

Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – Indigenous scholar Dunbad-Ortiz provides us with a power critique that dismantles the widely held belief that the US is a nation of immigrants.

The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants, by Adam Goodman – This is best book on the US practice of deportation since the country began using deportation as a strategy.

No Wall They Can Build: A Guide to borders & migration across North America, by CrimeThink – This CrimeThink book not only deconstructs the absurdity of borders walls, it provide a robust answer to the root causes of immigration from the southern border.

Abolish ICE: A Passionate Plea for a More Humane Immigration System, by Natascha Elena Uhlman

Lastly, for those who are interested in learning about the history of US immigration policy, GR Rapid Response to ICE is hosting a presentation on Thursday, February 27, fro 6:30 – 8pm at Fountain Street Church. The presentation is entitled, A People’s History of US Immigration Policy.