The Battle to Stay in America is the story of a community coming to grips with the federal government's crackdown on immigrants, and learning how to defend itself. Informative and personal, this is a story about mothers and fathers, lawyers and activists, local police and federal agencies, and a struggle for the identity of a nation. This is the quintessential story of the war on immigrants, as fought and felt on the front lines in the heart of America.
Preface: A Note About Word Choice ix Introduction 1
Part I: The Targets 1 The Graveyards of Nevada 11 2 Plan B 25 3 The Cleaners 43
Part II: The Attack 4 The Unaccompanied 61 5 Two Arrests 79 6 Psychological Warfare 92
Part III: The Defense 7 How to Talk to Your Neighbors About Immigration 111 8 The Strip Mall Resistance 129 9 Dirty Immigration Lawyers 146 10 The Coming Battle 160
Acknowledgments 169 Glossary 171 Notes 175 Bibliography 187 Index About the Author 197
Michael Kagan is the director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, which defends children and families fighting deportation in Las Vegas and is Joyce Mack Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has written for The Washington Post, Salon.com, and the The Daily Beast and is a leading national scholar of immigration and refugee law.
"[Kagan] provides an unusually accessible primer on immigration law and a valuable guide to the ways it currently works to perpetuate an excluded immigrant underclass with diminished rights." - Julia Preston, The New York Review of Books