U.S. Immigration In an Age of Global Apartheid

Story of U.S. Immigration In An Age of Global Apartheid

August, 14 2008
By Ben Terrall
Z-net

In his 2001 book, Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the ‘Illegal Alien' and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge), Joseph Nevins focused on the Clinton Administration's initiatives to heighten security at the U.S.-Mexico border.

That book showed how the alleged goal of reducing immigration to the U.S. by pushing potential migrants from "urban corridors" to remote regions only made the crossing more dangerous, and thus contributed to more needless deaths of poor Mexicans and Central Americans. It also made clear that previous to the 1970s, travel between Mexico and the U.S. was not a national issue.

Nevins's new book, Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration In An Age of Global Apartheid (City Lights Publishers, 2008), continues his earlier examination of border policies, but personalizes its analysis by looking at the tragic story of one hard-working family man, Julio Cesar Gallegos, who died with five other men and one young woman in 1998 in Southern California's Imperial Valley Desert.