Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border

by Ken Ellingwood

In May 2001, two dozen Mexican workers struck out across the U.S. border, plunging into the forbidding desert of southern Arizona with little water. Three days later, following a frenzied search by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375422439
• ISBN13: 9780375422430
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Hard Line (book)

A highly recommended read for those interested in what is happening along our southern borders.

Hard Line: Life and Death on the US-Mexico Border

The most thorough and unbiased study of the US/Mexico border issues I have read. Ken Ellingwood recreates the history as well as the projections for this controversial problem. He permits readers to view all aspects of the issue and to develop a thoughtful awareness of their own personal opinion based on fact, not conjecture or propaganda.

Engrossing

This is a fascinating book about an incredibly complicated subject. Ellingwood lets the people on both sides on the border and all sides of the issue tell their stories. I don't think it is possible to be more fair or thorough or compelling in reporting on this topic. The reader that considered this a biased work must be confusing it with another book.

A Fair Discussion of the Life-and-Death Impacts of U.S. Immi

This book should be read by anyone interested in an impartial discussion of the human consequences -- namely the deaths of thousands of migrants -- of the great increase in U.S. border enforcement in the 1990s. Hard Line presents in a readable fashion the perspectives of all the groups directly affected -- from Border Patrol officers to migrants to ranchers in southern Arizona -- by Operation Gatekeeper and the varous other military-style operations designed to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico. Among other things, we learn that the expendiuture of billions of dollars has not resulted in a reduction in immigration but simply directed migrant traffic through dangerous and inclement conditions where many migrants suffer gruesome deaths as a result of the simple pursuit of the American dream.