Customer Reviews

Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration

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Deepa Fernandes has done this country a huge favor by exposing the business interests, and the nefarious ideology behind the crack-down on immigrants. Some prefer to call them "illegals," but to many, these undocumented people are family, friends, fellow Christians, essential workers, etc. Now these economic refugees of the catastrophe of neoliberal economics are becoming objects of revenue in the growing immigrant detention and deportation complex.
Fernandes provides all sorts of facts and stories that are informative, heart-breaking and infuriating. Some will avoid her, since they are so emotionally invested in the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been drilled into our heads by politicians like Tom Tancredo, and countless right-wing radio hosts. Even progressive radio hosts, like Thom Hartmann, are calling for the punishment of US employers who hire undocumented workers. To cut off that source of income from Latin Americans, who have suffered under the boot of our corporate and military empire for generations, is unconscionable.

I was so pleased to hear Fernandes interviewed recently on "Radio Nation with Laura Flanders." She is so deserving of the publicity, and the American people are deserving of the truth of the lives of immigrants and those who are persecuting them - persecuting some of "the least among us." During Flanders' dialogue with Fernandes, someone called in and spoke of the "blowback" immigrants are experiencing due to their recent efforts to organize and pressure for their rights. Immigrants, or the citizen children of immigrants, who have marched or boycotted for immigration reform are finding ICE agents at their door.

At some point, especially if we experience another militant attack in retaliation to our state violence, those who are calling for these raids and detention centers may see this police state turned against their fellow citizens (just as the DEA currently throws countless lower class people into cages). I guess those who have been trained to accept, or who have a career in our system of crime and punishment, are always glad to see more spending going their way. Fortunately, there are those who do value freedom and decent relations with people from other countries. For them, "Targeted" is an invaluable resource.

As a Mexican and a professional, I think this book is invaluable. Deepa Fernandes's level of understanding not only of the Mexican immigration phenomenon but of the crude and harrowing Mexican poors' reality is astonishing. Midwest Book Review states "Targeted will reach college-level holding". The U.S. should not let this book just freeze on colleges. This is a book to take action; immediate action.
Firstly, criminalizing otherwise innocent "non-citizens" (or non-citizens who have served time and purged any prior felony or crime), many of whom see themselves as Americans, is distorting the law and freedom of speech into crimes of hate and greed. Decent USAmericans (and I know they're majority) should think of the implications of the melting-pot being lost, the implications in science, technology and the arts, the implications on just accepting diversity, seeing the commonality instead of the differences.
Secondly, "Targeted" points out situations otherwise not though about by U.S. citizens. I used to think prison should be used to reform the prisoner when possible, or to keep them apart from society but in humane conditions. The privatization of the prison system is unconscionable. How will prison private owners, who think of the bottom line first, care or even want to know how to take care of other human beings in their prisons? This, to me, portrays the inequality and Class War by other means in U.S. system. As Greg Palast says: On one side there's the wealthy prison owners. On the other side there are the prisoners, often not sufficiently taken care of as guards are being kept scarce, and more than one has been stabbed by their charges.
Finally, Has anybody stopped to think seriously on the long-term implications? Why the rush in immigrant detainees (Black & Brown) deportations? Seems the rulers have everything planned. How do Blacks and Browns usually vote? It seems to me ACLU chapter and human-rights-for-immigrants groups in every U.S. state should Act Now to stop this disenfranchisement.
Why do I worry as a Mexican? Of course we Mexicans must be decent enough to create jobs for our jobless. However I think prolongation of the current U.S. unbalanced government will hurt us Mexicans still more than our people has been hurt to this date. It seems to me that factual, nor feigned, acceptance of diversity and the inherent legality of every human being must be accepted everywhere.

This book is well-researched and well-written. Fernandes is an investigative journalist, and thus does not give the deep, theoretical viewpoint of an academic. Nevertheless, this book really packs a punch and certainly opened my eyes to important realities. For example, a young Haitian man who came to the US when he was two was arrested for smoking a joint. After serving his 30 day sentence in the US, he was deported to Haiti, where, sadly, he will likely die in prison. This is just one of the many shocking stories Fernandes tells in her account, as she indicts US courts, policymakers, corporations, and the military for the humanitarian crisis that our current immigration policies cause.

Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration will reach college-level holdings and comes form an award-winning journalist and radio host who here examines the latest debates covering American border security. History, political and social analysis, and first-person narratives blend to cover not only known facts about immigrants and illegals, but reveals some shocking facts about corporate profits made during the business of Homeland Security. An excellent pick for any college-level survey of either immigrant or terrorism issues.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Being an immigrant sucks.

"Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration," by Deepa Fernandes makes that painfully clear.

If you think what's happening at Guantánamo is bad, read this tome to find out how Mexicans, Guatemalans, Haitians and any other southerly, brown people are treated when apprehended by the beefed-up forces of order not only along the border, but down at the corner.

Fernandes, producer of WBAI New York's morning show "Wake-Up Call," has pieced together a rather staggering compilation of evidence asserting that immigrants have been targeted for a kind of "cleansing" from the national topography.

"Immigrants have been criminalized," she writes, "and there is a rush to incarcerate and deport them."

Worse, more insidiously, billions of dollars are being made in the immigration-industrial complex so deftly detailed by the author. Fernandes does a wicked job of piecing together how the Department of Homeland Security, boosted the Republican tropism for "privatization," was essentially concocted and directed with the connivance of the same corporate forces that would end up benefitting from the enormous, post-9/11 budgets appropriated for "fighting terrorism."

She makes plenty clear, for those not astute enough to notice, that after 9/11 "terrorism" somehow became interchangeable with "immigration," especially if the influx came from south of the border.

"Immigrants are currently the fastest growing segment of the prison population in the U.S. today," Fernandes points out.

And if you don't fit one of the increasingly narrow definitions of a person with the right to be here, you cease to be a person.

"Most people," Fernandes writes, "probably do not think too much about differences between citizens and noncitizens, yet day by day, the gulf between these two groups grows. it is a divide that has been quietly and systematically engineered. Two systems of justice, two systems of social services, two economies.

It's the two systems of justice that are most unnerving to read about. These people have no rights at all. Being guilty of nothing lands an immigrant in a newfangled holding complex paid for with your tax dollars and there is nothing to compel release or resolution of a case, even where the person really has no business being in there.

No habeas corpus, no nothing.

All the U.S.-born children, family connections, tax dollars paid-in, and social goods delivered will not save a detainee given the laws that effectively remove any need for a judge; so little discretion is left to them in deportation cases.

If they've committed a crime, and by crime that can be smoking a joint on the front stairs with some other revelers, they can forget about it. They're gone.

And if that means going back to Haiti and jail for a little torture and disease contraction... so be it.

Seeking asylum from persecution? Take a seat in hell for a while...or longer. Fernandes' treatment of the subject essentially suggests that this country no longer represents a refuge for thus threatened with persecution or death at the hands of their home government.

"Targeted" is most powerful when Fernandes, a reporter who has logged thousands of miles between the continents and global hotspots, goes one-on-one, humanizing her subjects.

And this is necessary because, from the start, they don't belong here and know it. Some have committed crimes and invited the natural reaction that they "go back where they came from."

But a good writer and reporter knows that, were things quite so black and white, we wouldn't need good writers and reporters.

There are numerous and worthwhile stories of tragedy-by-law in "Targeted," as an example, it is worth highlighting the plight of a Palestinian who worked at WBAI with the author.

He got pulled into the maws of the immigration black hole, fought unholy battles to gain release, suffered long periods of imprisonment, and finally died of heart attack upon a release that was as much deserved as his detention was not.

The tale of Haitian who grew up in the United States, served in Iraq, and then came home to get imprisoned for a minor crime committed years before, takes the cake for chutzpah and should scare anybody where the matter of their own possible detention is concerned, citizen or not.

It is unconscionable that such things like this go in the United States of America today.

And while the suits shuffle the floors of Congress trying to figure out who can out-tough whom on immigration or come up with the cheapest and least inconvenient source of labor for corporate America, it's important to remember that these are human beings and this is a democracy.

Amidst all the unkindness surrounding the immigration debate at present, Fernandes reminds us:

"While it is true that many immigrants come to the U.S. for economic reasons, they also come here for the promises of democracy and freedom that are sold to the world as American ideals. For many immigrants these are not abstract principles or commodities to be bought, sold or imposed. Democracy and freedom are absolutely worth fighting for."

With everything immigrants contribute to our lives, that reminder may be their greatest gift of all.

In Targeted, radio journalist Deepa Fernandes eloquently deconstructs the corrupt political machinery that churns broken immigration policies into an already faulty immigration system. With insightful research and a strong narrative voice, Fernandes takes us on an illuminating journey through our immigration system while tackling vital immigration issues and misleading rhetoric that, whether we like it or not, shape immigration policy, public opinion and immigrant's lives. From unjust and contradictory refugee and asylum laws to expedited removal proceedings, deportation roundups and overcrowded detention centers, Fernandes deftly captures the human immigrant experience and cuts to the quick of restrictionists' motivation--large government contracts, fear and the business of Homeland Security. Targeted is a great addition to any high school classroom interested in setting aside traditional textbook revisionist history and exploring current immigration policies, laws and the people whose lives are at stake.

Targeted is a quick, enchanting read on a plethora of topics related to what is among the country's most controversial topics: immigration. But moreso than your typical tales of Minutemen and protesters, Deepa Fernandes (host of WBAI's WakeUp Call) compiles a series of sobering facts, figures and testimonies on the matter of immigration as a transaction of capital and politics. Her writing is poignant, passionate
and political. From travails with hate-group infiltrators to investigative reporting on what Fernandes terms the immigration-industrial complex, /Targeted/ is spellbinding. Deepa is one of the most insightful writers out there.

This book must be read by every US citizen. There is no book that can possibly cover the entire human tragedy involved in the present US immigration system. However, the author made a very good selection of testimonies. The book is very well organized, it very well combines personal stories with statistics and academic research. Warning: for a person unfamiliar with the world of US immigration this book may be too shocking. Even though prospects for a change are rather small people should at least know what's going on their own country.
Highly recommended.