Details
- Shines a light on the many injustices and inadequacies of America's current immigration control system
- Features stories of immigrants caught in the immigration control system's web and shows what happens to them after they are deported
- A broad ranging overview of how the system emerged and how it works that closes with powerful legal and ethical argument for reforming it
Since the passage of harsh new deportation laws in 1996, the United States has deported millions of noncitizens--many undocumented, but many others long-term legal residents with U.S. families--back to their countries of origin. The early Obama administration continued such aggressive deportation policies. But few know that once deportees have been expelled to places like Guatemala, Cambodia, Haiti, and El Salvador, many face severe isolation, alienation, persecution and, sometimes, death. Many may never be able to return. Daniel Kanstroom--author of the authoritative history of deportation, Deportation Nation--turns his attention in Aftermathto the current U.S. system and deportation's actual effects on individuals, families, U.S. communities, and the countries that must process and repatriate deportees. Addressing various political, social, philosophical and legal issues, Kanstroom considers how deportation works within the "rule of law." He recounts stories of immigrants to highlight what actually happens to them after they are deported. After concluding that the U.S. deportation system remains an anachronistic, ad hoc, legally dubious affair, the book offers specific proposals for a more humane and rational deportation system.
Readership: General readers interested in immigration, migration, and national security; students and scholars of public policy, international studies, security studies, and political science.
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
1. THE GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE DEPORTATION SYSTEM
2. PROBLEMS WITHIN THE DEPORTATION SYSTEM
3. THE EFFECTS OF DEPORTATION ON INDIVIDUALS, FAMILIES,
AND COMMUNITIES
4. THE RULE OF LAW AND ITS BORDERS: DEPORTEES AND
THE SPACE/TIME CONTINUUM
5. RECONCEPTUALIZING THE RULE OF DEPORTATION AND
POST-DEPORTATION LAW
Daniel Kanstroom, Professor of Law, Boston College
Daniel Kanstroom is Professor of Law at Boston College and author of Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History.
"In Aftermath, Dan Kanstroom accomplishes the impossible: he disassembles the labyrinthine snarl of our immigration system in a volume that is both readable and scholarly, accessible and authoritative. Arguing compellingly against "government behavior and consequences we cannot and should not accept," he outlines a sensible, sane way forward. This book is ultimately a volume of hope that appeals to the American spirit of fair play and resoundingly demonstrates that fairness can be, and is, pragmatic and enlightened self-interest. A must-read."--Ashley Judd, actor and human rights activist
"Daniel Kanstroom has written another remarkable book about the U.S. deportation system. Reading Aftermath is a must for anyone seriously interested in understanding the underbelly of contemporary US border control policy and the urgency of immigration reform."--Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
"In this cogent, well-written and, at times, poignant work of scholarship, Daniel Kanstroom looks unflinchingly at the understudied issue of deportation's aftermath. No one interested in immigration policy will be unmoved by his deft unveiling of the injustices that routinely accompany the US's use of large-scale deportation. More than simply showing its problems, this work provides a convincing account of how the deportation system can be reformed to make it less of an affront to basic principles of morality and legal fairness."--Matthew J. Gibney, University of Oxford
"Dan Kanstroom is among the most daring and inventive migration scholars writing today. Many studies of immigration law and policy start with the foreign national's arrival in the United States and end with her forced departure. But for nearly all individuals and families, life does not end with removal. Aftermath carries the story forward, rounding out the picture to include previously-overlooked narratives of life for those removed, those left behind, and the enduring efforts of millions of households to preserve the ties that bind. It is a fair-minded and accessible book that lays bare the gross failings of our current deportation machinery, but also, in illuminating experience in what Kanstroom terms "the new American diaspora," points to a way out of the terrible box we are now in."--Michael J. Wishnie, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School
