Ellingwood, Ken. Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border.ELLINGWOOD, Ken. Hard line: life and death on the U.S.-Mexico border. Random House, Vintage. 256p. bibliog, notes, index, c2004. 1-40003367-5. $14.00. SA Ken Ellingwood was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). in the late 1990s. He reported on Operation Gatekeeper Operation Gatekeeper was a Clinton-era security operation on the United States–Mexico border near San Diego, California. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the goal of Gatekeeper was "to restore integrity and safety to the nation's busiest border. , the largest crackdown on illegal immigration "Illegal alien" and "Illegal aliens" redirect here. For other uses, see Illegal aliens (disambiguation). Illegal immigration refers to immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. by the US Government ever attempted. In essence, it built a giant wall between California and the country of Mexico, but no wall can ever completely close off that border. Its effect was to push the immigrants further east and into the desert where many thousands would die, come into conflict with ranchers, divide Native lands artificially, and inspire both vigilante vigilante n. someone who takes the law into his/her own hands by trying and/or punishing another person without any legal authority. In the 1800s groups of vigilantes dispensed "frontier justice" by holding trials of accused horse-thieves, rustlers and shooters, and and humanitarian groups to take action. Ellingwood explores the history of the US/ Mexico relationship and he does an excellent job of describing the conflicts and emotions caused by illegal immigration, the reasons it occurs, and the effects it produces on the American economy and America's image of itself as a country. His use of personal stories gives the political issues of illegal immigration a human side. While he gives examples of the mistreatment mis·treat tr.v. mis·treat·ed, mis·treat·ing, mis·treats To treat roughly or wrongly. See Synonyms at abuse. mis·treat of many of the migrants, he does not mention one growing scourge associated with illegal immigration--human trafficking; however, the bibliography, notes and index enable the reader to pursue the entire subject further. Nola Theiss, Sanibel, FL |
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