"Discussions on U.S. border enforcement have traditionally focused on the highly charged U.S.-Mexico boundary, inadvertently obscuring U.S.-Caribbean relations and the concerning asylum and detention policies unfolding there. Boats, Borders, and Bases offers the missing, racialized histories of the U.S. detention system and its relationship to the interception and detention of Haitian and Cuban migrants. It argues that the U.S. response to Cold War Caribbean migrations actually established the legal and institutional basis for contemporary migration and detention, and border-deterrent practices in the United States. This book promises to make a significant contribution to a truer understanding of the history and geography of the U.S. detention system overall."--Provided by publisher.

During the 1980s thousands of refugees from Central America, who sought safe haven in the United States, found themselves incarcerated in immigration prisonsabused by their jailors and deprived of the most basic legal and human rights. Drawing on declassified government documents and interviews with more than 3,000 Central American refugees, Kahn portrays the chilling reality of daily life in immigration prisons and reveals how the Department of Justice and the Immigration and Naturalization Service intentionally violated federal laws and regulations to deny protection to refugees fleeing wars financed by U.S. military aid. }During the 1980s hundreds of thousands of refugees fled civil wars and death squads in Central America, seeking safe haven in the United States. Instead, thousands found themselves incarcerated in immigration prisonsabused by their jailors and deprived of the most basic legal and human rights. Drawing on declassified government documents and interviews with prison officials, INS staff, and more than 3,000 Central American refugees, Robert S. Kahn reveals how the Department of Justice and its dependent agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, intentionally violated federal laws and regulations to deny protection to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala who were fleeing wars financed by U.S. military aid.Kahn portrays the chilling reality of daily life in immigration prisons in Texas, Arizona, and Louisiana. Behind the razor-topped prison walls, refugees were not simply denied political asylum; they were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, and sometimes tortured by prison guards. Other Peoples Blood traces the ten-year legal struggle by volunteer prison workers and attorneys to stop the abuse of refugees and to force the Justice Department to concede in court that its treatment of immigrants had violated U. S. laws and the Geneva Convention for over a decade. Yet the case of American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh, which overturned more judicial decisions than any other case in U.S. history, is still virtually unknown in the United States, and today the debate over illegal immigration is being carried on with little awareness of the government policies that contributed so shamefully to this countrys immigration problems. }

From Sit-Ins to #revolutions examines the evolution and growth of digital activism, while at once outlining how scholars theorize and conceptualize the field through new methodologies. As it closely examines the role that social and digital media play in enabling protests, this volume probes the interplay between historical and contemporary protests, emancipation and empowerment, and online and offline protest activities. Drawn from academic and activist communities, the contributors look beyond often-studied mass action events in the USA, UK, and Australia to also incorporate perspectives from overlooked regions such as Aboriginal Australia, Thailand, Mexico, India, Jamaica and Black America. From illustrating the allure of political action to a closer look at how digital activists use new technologies to push toward reform, From Sit-Ins to #revolutions promises to shed new light on key questions within activism, from campaign organization and leadership to messaging and direct action.

"In his introduction to this manuscript, John Weber describes how, throughout his years of research on his earlier book on South Texas, he kept coming across the figure of William Hanson (1866-1931). Hanson appeared in reports of efforts to eliminate Mexican American voting in South Texas, in accusations of wrongdoing by Texas Rangers, and elsewhere. It wasn't until Weber completed his first book that he was able to go back into the archives, start pulling on threads, and begin to piece together a fuller picture of Hanson's life and activities. This project contains the fruits of his investigation. This is not a full biography of Hanson (the existing records do not really allow that), but rather a study of his activities in the 1920s and how they help us better understand the history and politics of the Texas-Mexico border. As Weber explains, Hanson was a close witness to history during these years, as well as an active agent of it. He was a captain in the Texas Rangers, an associate of Albert Bacon Fall, and the top official in the Immigration Service at the time of the creation of the Border Patrol. From these various positions and with the help of his powerful patrons, Hanson helped shape the ways that U.S. policymakers understood the border, its residents, and the movement of goods and people across the international boundary"--