Other People's Blood: U.S. Immigration Prisons in the Reagan Decade

By Robert S. Kahn

Book Overview

Other People's 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 Conventions for over a decade.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813324467
• ISBN13: 9780813324463
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A gripping look at the immigration issues of the 80s and 90s

Robert Kahn's book is a must-read for anyone with an opinion on US immigration policies. Kahn draws on his experiences as a legal-assistant for various immigration attorneys doing pro-bono work for undocumented workers captured by the INS and detained all over the US during the 80's to give the reader a very gritty and human grasp of the issues involved in US immigration policy. Kahn draws a direct correlation between US foreign policy in El Salvador (which trained the government death squads) and the subsequent waves of immigrants which came from El Salvador as a result of those policies. Then, drawing on his personal experience and documented interviews, Kahn details the civil and human rights abuses which many of these immigrants go through and are still going through at the hands of the INS. Kahn's book takes policy issues and campaign rhetoric concerning immigration and brings it down to earth with this book. By writing it in first-person the information and stories within "Other People's Blood" becomes very real and the reader is affected even more deeply. The book suffers only in it's lack of direction or focus. While the information and detailed interviews mostly stand alone, the book does not carry a climax or build up of tension which the first-person style might complement. Instead Kahn's book is a continuous detailed log of his encounters and interviews as a person volunteering his time for these immigrants who the US government and people would just as soon forget, alongside his personal analysis of how misinformed US policy and opinion have led to such ridiculous and horrifying results along our borders. It is very easy to read, despite the numerous footnotes and documentation. After reading it twice I passed it around to many of my friends, and they in turn passed it to their friends. It invariably evoked strong reactions among everyone I know who has read it, and I recommend it highly.