Killing the American Dream
How Anti-Immigration Extremists are Destroying the Nation
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
As the US deports record numbers of illegal immigrants and local and state governments scramble to pass laws resembling dystopian police states where anyone can be questioned and neighbors are encouraged to report on one another, violent anti-immigration rhetoric is growing across the nation. Against this tide of hysteria, Pilar Marrero reveals how damaging this rise in malice toward immigrants is not only to the individuals, but to our country as a whole. Marrero explores the rise in hate groups and violence targeting the foreign-born from the 1986 Immigration Act to the increasing legislative madness of laws like Arizona's SB1070 which allows law officers to demand documentation from any individual with "reasonable suspicion" of citizenship, essentially encouraging states and municipalities to form their own self-contained nation-states devoid of immigrants. Assessing the current status quo of immigration, Marrero reveals the economic drain these ardent anti-immigration policies have as they deplete the nation of an educated work force, undermine efforts to stabilize tax bases and social security, and turn the American Dream from a time honored hallmark of the nation into an unattainable fantasy for all immigrants of the present and future.
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America's treatment of the issue of illegal immigration is profoundly dysfunctional, argues Marrero. A journalist for the Spanish-language newspaper La Opini n, she examines the plight of undocumented workers looking to make a life for themselves in an increasingly nativist political culture. While illegal immigration is often constructed as a scapegoat for the ills of recession-era America, Marrero shows the issue to be far more complex. States depend on the labor and economic contributions of a growing population of undocumented workers, yet enact increasingly oppressive laws designed to make daily life for them unbearable, while the federal government expands an expensive program of deportation that disproportionately affects Latinos even as their votes become more important. Investigating small towns undergoing demographic shifts, corporations profiting from increased immigrant detention, and the unique difficulties faced by the children of illegal immigrants, Marrero makes a convincing case that America's success in the 21st century depends on abandoning political posturing in favor of coherent national policy.
