sebastian mentioned so i want to thank our session is meat we have very little time but i want to thank gary for being here and sharing his information. thank you for the beautiful book. if want to purchase this book, the nowhere bookshop outside the tent in the festival is a place to go for book sales. i gary is going to be signing books that i'll be signing there from for for the next 20 minutes or so. and i just have to say this is the most dilute mescal i've ever had. i mean, i just i don't think it has much flavor. but thank you all for coming. thank to the book festival and we have a wonderful community here. we're partner cities as a city of gastronomy and tucson. so we welcome many of you over to arizona. the dry heat state to to see what's happening there. that's a parallel to the

wonderful innovation you have here. thank you. allow me to introduce professor minion. ana raquel minian is a professor history at stanford university and the author of the award winning book undocumented lives the untold story of mexican migration, a recipient of that prestigious and i do mean prestigious andrew carnegie fellowship. their writing has appeared in the new york times. the atlantic foreign affairs, among many other outlets. originally from mexico city, they now live with their partner in the bay area. their book, which we have in front us in the shadow of liberty the invisible history of immigrant detention in the

united states is the second and most recent book. now, let me say a little bit about the book. um here we go. in the shadow of liberty, the invisible history of immigrant detention. viking press coming officially on the 16th of april 2024. today is the 39th, so you get to have special copies of this book coming out. and like i said, nowhere books has the copies outside this book reveals the history of the immigrant detention system from its inception in the 1800s to the present time braiding together vivid stories of four immigrants seeking to escape the turmoil of their homelands for the promise of america. the book gives this a human face four human faces to be precise, along with many other faces

intertwined in these four stories telling the dramatic story of a central american asylum seeker, a cuban exile, a european war bride, and a chinese refugee. and so we are here to learn more about the process, as well as the book itself. welcome to san antonio. welcome to the san antonio book festival. we are delighted to you here, especially to speak about such a timely, timely, a topic and a affair. guest. thank you so much. it is such an honor to be here in san antonio and the book festival so. thank you for inviting me and thank you all for. and so we'll get right into it because an hour is never long enough to speak to our amazing authors. what compelled you to write in the shadow liberty? i arrived to the united states in 2001, and when i so it was

just a few days after. 911 and i a world that i didn't know before, culture, friends that were so diverse. but in the back of my mind, guantanamo was always there and what had it what was happening still. i had another concern was an undocumented mexican migration right before 911. president bush about to sign an agreement which would have legal millions of undocumented immigrants. and with the collapse of the the towers. so did this treaty fall? so i wrote a book, my first book on undocumented mexican migration. and as i was researching it, i realized that there was just no information on the history of detention. so many people were being apprehend, detained, detained. and we had no information about it. how did immigration detention

start? were there any alternatives? and then president. in 2018 began to separate children from their parents while in detention. it was then that i decided to, write this book. i wanted to know how it was that we as a nation had come to a place where we could not only imagine june such a possibility, but we could enforce it. and that is how i came to write in the shadow of liberty. and thank you for doing such incredible research. we know that you drove into personal stories. we know that you did hundreds of interviews. we know that you went into archives and dug up some of the most grueling stories, really. and so in the shadow, liberty tells the history, as we said of these four people. how did you choose these people? why was it important to you to

detail four stories? so like i was saying earlier, for me, tracing the history of immigration detention and how we had come to such policies was indispensable. how did detention intertwined with incarceration. how was. how had this become official policy. but also wanted to explore the lives and experiences and actions and resistance in. into lives of those who were being held by by immigration officials. i chose the four people that i chose because i wanted to cover the long span of immigration detention, immigration began federal immigration began in 1891. and so the first person i choose is a chinese migrant who arrived during the period of chinese

exclusion. and then i follow different characters, different people, the four different people that you mentioned, because they show how immigration detention has captured, has held old people from all the world. we generally associate it, as you know, just latino so being apprehended. but that has not been the case historically. at the same time, i chose the four people i wanted to interview because they were part of the important transformations in the history of immigrant detention. would you mind telling just a little bit about each one of the four stories so that the people that have not read the book and i think many of us here have read it. i was very excited to get an advance copy. and then i was like, i have to the real copy to get that the footnotes, the footnotes are incredible. a little bit more about each one of the people that the persons that you selected. so the first person his name is

fucci, how he lived in china was born in china during the boxer rebellion. the boxer rebellion was in china. there were a lot of missionaries and foreign intervention, including missionaries from the united states. there was an uprising to protest this against this foreign intervention and it was pretty brutal with many killed, many people tortured for how actually fought to save american lives. and in particular, he worked in a mission that was run by professors from oberlin college. so he saved their lives or he tried to help save their lives. he was unable to. and then oberlin college, him to the united states. now, at the time there was chinese exclusion. chinese people were not allowed to come unless they belonged. one of a few categories student

speaking one. now jiao had risked his for american citizens. he was coming in legally to the united states and still he was detained as soon as he arrived. first on the vessel on which he landed and then in a shed in san francisco under the most terrible. his story shows how it's not people's actions that lead them to being detained but sometimes and often it's their race. the next person is ellen nuff. ellen was a jewish woman who was born in germany. she survived the holocaust. she married an american gi. and so she decided to come to the united states. and there, under the war, brides act, she arrived in 1948, legally. and yet because arrived during

the period of the cold war and she had migrated from germany to the czech republic to avoid being captured by the nazis. she was she was presumed to be a potential spy and incarcerated in ellis island, the place that was generally to be, you know, the gateway of opportunity to the united states. she was held there for three years. there was no evidence really against her. eventually, she was released just like fucci. how again it was this presumption about her rather than her actions. she had actually worked against the nazis and even parties supported in the us army's actions after the war and still she was held in ellis island. this story captures not that, but it captures that this place, this symbol that we have, that america is a nation of immigrants, means that we also are a nation of prisoners.

the third story that i followed was that of hidalgo, mansoor, alan sarnoff story became so popular, captured so much media attention. think about it. this woman who had survived holocaust being held in ellis island, among many other people, i have to say. she was her. her story was all over the press. so in 1954, soon after her release, the attorney general decided that this press was too much and decided that it no longer necessary to detain people immigration detention wage. and from 1954 to 1980. and that's when hidalgo manslaughter appears in 1980, fidel castro decides that, you know what? previously, cubans hadn't been able to leave their country in 1980. he's like, okay, anyone can go, can leave.

and in the summer of that year, 125 cubans sailed to the united states under what's known as the mariel boatlift. now, as they were sailing here, castro, they all criminals. i sent i opened up my jails and sent in criminals. this cost, of course, much, much commotion in america. and it helped reintroduce the system of immigration. here are, the man who was one of the people who arrived, the mariel boatlift and ended up detained by this growing system. when immigration detention returned in the 1980s. it didn't just return like it had before. it did so in a completely different fashion beforehand. before 1954, we had detained people in order. while we decided.

and we allow them in or we can't. it was mostly like saying, okay, chinese people are not allowed in, for example. but this person is this person a real student. and while we decided those people were kept in detention. in 1981, immigration detention returned. it was used as a form of deterrent. now, the idea was, let's make immigration detention so awful that people who thinking about coming don't come. and that is when fernando arredondo appears. fernando arredondo fled with his family from guatemala. he arrived in the united states in 2008, just with his daughter. he fled, i have to say, because his son had been killed by gangs. he asked for asylum, which is a legal right, the united states. he asked asylum, and yet he was separate from his daughter.

this happened because of this policy of deterrence that we had since 1980. thank you so much for all those. i think it's really important for our audience to know and, to see the gamut of these stories. right. that they're so different and yet they're so similar in the way that that the u.s. government treats migrants and immigrants from different parts of the country at different times. some history. right. and so as you show in your book, migrants who are detained upon the united states can be denied basic rights as a result of nearly 150 year old policies known as one policy, in particular, known as the entry fiction. what is entry fiction and is it so consequential? so, like i said in immigration detention was first allowed into u.s. law in.

1891, before 1891. migrants who arrived while the government decided, whether it was going to allow them in or not, kept them in the vessels on which they had arrived. now, this cost a huge problem, of course, to the companies of those ships who had to sail out. and these cases sometimes took months to resolve. so congress said, okay, they can be detained in the mainland, but we are going to imagine that they never landed, that they're not here. this means that detention centers can be anywhere in the country, but the people within them, they're on the u.s. map, but they are assumed, they're imagined to be elsewhere. this is what's known as the entry fiction. and it continues to reign. the how we run immigration detention to this day. now, think about it. we generally associate places where have no right or limited

constitu tional rights with nazi germany, the soviet union, pinochet --, chile. we rarely think it in terms of the of the u.s. mainland. and yet nowadays people are being detained in the united without basic rights. they can be caged without having a trial, detained for indefinite periods of time. they don't know when they're going to be released or if they're going to released at all. they don't have to be accused of a crime and they're being detained often by the same corporations that prisons. if you think about it, this such treatment is very similar. akin what happened in guantanamo and in some ways is happening in guantanamo. we do not imagine to be part of the mainland. and let me tell you a curious

fact, while not true, it's a horrible fact. i would say that links back to how i began this project at guantanamo. first started not as a place to hold, quote unquote terrorists, but to hold haitian refugees who were escaping the brutality that was happening in haiti. it was introduced by george h.w. bush in 1991, and then after 911, his son, w bush knew exactly where to detain people without rights. thank you. in the book, you discuss the reasons why detention is supported, effective as a deterrent and preventing absconding american citizens. but why isn't it the case. thank you so yeah. when i tell people we don't

really need to be incarcerating detainees i hear all sorts of answers. the first one, the most common one is what if we don't them? they're just going to obscure. they're going to be in america and just run away. this is not the truth. it hasn't been the truth historically. and it's not the truth today. if we follow the history of the united states from 1954, for example, to 1980, the government released migrants knowing that they were going to come back and they did. today, approximately more than 80% of those who. arrived to the united states while their cases are being adjudicated, also appear in court. and that number rises to over. 90% for those who have a lawyer and for those who are asking for asylum. do you know almost 100% of all

of those who are asking for asylum appear in immigration court? it's not necessary to detain them. it's not necessary to hold them in a cage to ensure that they appear in court. the second reason that i hear is that, you know, those were detaining are potential criminals and they pose a danger to us. again, history shows this is not true. generally, immigration detention, those who are held in sighted are the fears about them are constituted primarily by the hysteria of the time and not by their actions. think about the four characters that i describe. fucci has actually had to fight for american lives, but he arrived during the period of chinese exclusion and chinese exclusion action had passed because of fears that the chinese people were taking american jobs. so it's more about these fears

that that chinese people were taking jobs, that chinese people had different culture, that they were potentially dangerous. it's fears that led to the detention of fucci howe and thousands of others. the same is true over and over again. we see it without enough story. the fears of the cold war. she was a spy. we see it with corado. mansor. he was fleeing in cuba. my folks from the mariel boatlift were fleeing cuba. fidel castro announces that they're criminals. suddenly there's, this explosion of fear about who these cubans really are. before trump introduced the zero tolerance policy that separated children from their parents, he accused central americans of being criminals and gang members. immigration detention does make us safer. it is. it is a known fact that immigrants commit much fewer

crimes in american citizens. yes, their argument. those are actually two main arguments that are that i hear. you had mentioned another one. so i just want to make sure that i address all your questions. protecting american americans citizens as a deterrent. oh and deterrence, of course, that when i don't hear too often. but but amongst scholars, some scholars do tell me, like. but it acts as a deterrent. but actually, it not. that's absolutely right. it hasn't. again, in the past. and it doesn't today. people have kept coming over and over again because the conditions in their home are so dire and detention does nothing to solve those conditions. think trump's policies? you would think that children from their parents while in immigration did because

immigrant through immigration detention would mean that immigrants would stop coming, asylum seekers would stop coming. but actually, in 2019, just a year after this passed, apprehensions at the border were over 80% higher than the previous year. family separation, the brutal lity of detention, had not deterred more people from coming to the united states. thank you. how how is this related to incarceration as a whole? who benefits? why do we continue to have these incredibly inhumane circumstance sets and situations for the detention centers? if we already know that historians like yourself prove that this is not working, why do we still continue to do this? how is a to incarceration? so the history of incarceration and, the history of detention are very much intertwined from

the very when we started detaining in the united states, we would often put them in jail. right. so we were using the facilities, the same facilities that the criminal justice system was using. now we're being used for detention nowadays that continues. for example, if we see hidalgo man sought in the 1980s, he was detained in a maximum security penitentiary in atlanta. the same true. the opposite is true, actually. let's start with that. so while the same facilities that are used in the criminal justice system has have been used to detain migrant immigration detention has propelled the construction of more prison. since the 1980s, largest leaders have argued we need to build more prisons because have so

many immigrants being detained in these places that we just don't have enough spaces for american citizens. now, in 1983, following the mariel boatlift, one of the developments that happened as a result of this use of incarceration, use of jails, place, use of prisons to incarcerate immigrants who were arriving. america was. tom beasley. this entry, preneur suggested that it was a good idea to build for profit prisons. the first for profit prison started here in texas. since then, the for profit prison system has expanded dramatically. the two primary ones are now core civic, which derives from the corp, the cca, which started

it was tom beasley's organization. in 1983 and the geo group. these two corporations are also are used to detain over 90% of all immigrant detainees and over 80% of all americans. citizens in the criminal justice system, there is much profit to be made through incarceration. let's shift a little bit and have you talk to us about how you, as a researcher, construct book like this one, and also, i wanted to commend you on the accessibility of your writing this book. this book is not just a history book from one professor to another, but it is a history book of detention. the united states for everyone to read and for everyone to understand. clearly, that takes a lot of like really style and decision making power.

but how did you go about creating like this? so it given what was happening, it was very important for me that it was accessible that not just, you know, my students and other professors would read it, but that everyone would read it or as many people i could get to read would read it. and yet, researching this topic was very, very hard. immigrant detention are purposefully constructed as far away from urban hubs, far away from the site of lawyers of citizens. so we don't know much of what is happening. and acquiring those documents is extremely hard. so part of what i did was foia requests to get that information. i.

went to the national archives to the jimmy carter presidential library, the ronald reagan presidential library. and that's how i managed to see how the policy shifted. but as you said, was also interested in capturing the the experiences of these immigrants. and to do so went about it in two different ways. for people arrived after the 1950s, i could interview them. so i conducted oral history interviews with them. it was to find people who were detained, willing to speak. some of them, you know, worried that this would put them at risk. others, after they were released from detention. it had been such a traumatic experience that they were mentally ill, had become homeless. others had been deported. so what i did to find them was i would hang out in the parks where i knew people, you know,

immigrants often were. and ultimately i became such, you know a common character that they were willing speak to me. i cold call people who i found newspapers and in legal archives. i went to the countries where migrants had been deported to and ultimately i managed. interview over a hundred migrants who had been detained. yeah, that's that's how i basically constructed it. and then i built this story by picking the four people that that i talk to about. the last two, i have to say, ellen and foushee, how had written very vivid. i was able to corroborate what people were telling me through archives. so that was also very important to. mm hmm. in the book, you talk about a brief period, american history, the late 1950s to the early 1980s. after the supreme court case land may ma versus barba.

when the u.s. significantly curtailed immigration, incarceration declaring quote certain this policy reflects the human qualities of an enlightened civilization, end quote is such an important quote as we head into an election year, what should we demand of our public servants? thank you. yeah. so from 1954, following alan north's case on immigration detention waned. the attorney general general declared that this was no longer to be the policy of america. instead, the government was going to release more. the vast majority of immigrant on parole. for most migrants parole, they didn't even have to pay bonds. of course, there was some racism here. haitian immigrants were proved to have to pay a high bond. in 1980, like i said, this

system. duane but in 1958, it was so hailed that, yes, the supreme court said that this reflected the humane aspects of enlightened civilization. what can we demand from civil servants now? it is a very complicated time period. passing law is going to be extremely hard now. it is, you know, undoubtedly we need to change our immigration laws much more broadly. but since is, you know, very hard to do, let tell you what we can do about immigration. first, we have already had a period in which people were being detained. people were being released to their families, to their communities. there is no reason, like i said, to detain migrants. it's financially costly. it does make us safer. it does not act as a deterrent.

migrants do abscond. given that there's no reason to hold them and that it is so expensive in terms of our human rights in terms of our ethics, and in terms in our economics terms, why are we holding them? so that is the main thing want to say. we need to demand that immigration detention no longer that people are released into their communities, friends, families. thank you. what do you hope the readers take away from your book in the shadow of liberty. we know that public pressure matters. in 1954, the attorney general decided to stop immigration detention because of public pressure. after it had been in the news. so regularly. precedent, trump ended the policy of separating children

from their parents. after we put public pressure on him pressure matters, we do not need immigration detention. and it is time for us as citizens to put pressure on our government officials and i wanted you to read just a little bit, a couple of little short paragraph from the book so that our audience can hear your voice and. also, the enticing of what do we do at this point. i, i was warned that this is coming. so let me read. the changes might seem hard to implement, but the history embedded in this book also suggests a path forward. it is time to listen, to and support the demands of those held behind bars in walls. and then let me skip a little pressure matters.

it is time that we follow the demands of detained people and voice opposition to the nation's immigrants system. several organized haitians are already doing that. effective as well as fighting for the rights of detained migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. and i provide a list where you can donate money. americans turned against detention. once before we can it again. thank so much. please help me. thank you, professor minion. and we are doing wonderful with time. and so please, this is your time now to end to questions. wait for the microphone because we are being recorded. and so we want to make sure that all the questions are clearly are clearly heart. well, that happens. thank you very much to everyone. i really appreciate your support. hi. so as you guys know like as before has passed or was passed

late last year, like in december i signed into law, i think it was like december 22nd, effective march 1st, and then it was deterred by the aclu civil rights project and other organizations. and then it's inspired stuff in florida, west virginia and iowa that's like completely ignoring like the detention. do you think that like that's the future, just straight up, grabbing somebody wherever in the state, regardless of status, and just taking them to the border and then also having like countries like mexico saying we're not going to accept them. yeah so part of what's happened. since 2019 is that people are being no longer or that is not true. let me rephrase that. immigration detention in the united states has decreased people instead are being held in. mexico and other countries. first, we implemented the remain

in mexico policy, which said that immigrants that had to wait in mexico while their asylum cases were being adjudicated. but even worse for immigrants was, title 42, which passed as a result of the covid pandemic. it was a public law from, you know, the 1940s that said that if immigrants post pop up a public health have they were dangerous terms of our public health. they could be stopped. and that's what happened. immigrants no longer even ask for asylum these immigrants were held, nor they weren't being held. but they basically to stay in northern mexico in encampments. they're a they can return to their home countries. they had fled because of the risks. so in some ways we have been offshoring immigration control since then. but actually, this is a policy

again that although it has expanded, it also began in the 1980s, we have been asking mexico to stop the flow of central americans and other trends to migrants so that more. since the 1980s have regularly been deported from mexico than from the united states. so yes, this policy of offshore migration control elsewhere. in some ways has been invisible even detention in the united states been invisible to most americans. only time we really paid attention to it was with a family separation policy. so do i think this is the future? yes, and i think it's also the past in. fortunately. thank you for your question. thank you. thank you for your talk. professor minion. i'm really interested in the idea of public pressure, and i think sometimes i'm really concerned, even hearing from,

you know, liberal, pro-women brand organizations this, you know, who gets left behind the kind of pressure that we exert. and i'm really interested in your ideas on how we should be exerting pressure, how we make sure not to leave the most vulnerable, the most marginalized behind. and in terms of immigrant detention and its link to, incarceration, criminality in the united states, it makes me think a lot of people who do come into immigrant detention directly from oftentimes a, you know, regular prison for some kind of like criminal infraction that had really to do with the immigration infraction. but now they have immigration consequences due to that criminal conduct, or maybe not just a criminal conviction or maybe not even a conviction because the convictions are required. and so i wonder you know, we get some advocates still tripped up and saying, like, well, families and asylum seekers, but nobody

wants to touch these folks who often languish in immigrant detention for the longest periods of time. and so i wonder how you incorporate that if it's incorporated the book and if not, how we can incorporate that in our pressure as well? absolutely. that's that's a great question i have to say, i actually was my student many years ago so in particular are really proud of this question but i might be biased just a little bit. so you're absolutely right when we do ask the groups that the few groups that are asking for immigration detention to end or to be changed, to be reduced are so through a language often of unaccompanied minors. we need to not be detaining people or families or children who are coming by. so i have found, like you, that the language of families and especially of children is being

utilized over, over again. and this leaves behind and groups of people that, for example, have committed infractions, have broken the law in the united states. it also leaves behind single men, for example, who are arriving. it often leaves behind other people, lgbtq people are often not defended through language. do i think that needs to happen? absolutely. i speak about it a lot. i don't. i. i don't know how to influence, but people like you, i think what is an a lawyer? i think that you can sort of start to influence this rhetoric and what is happening so that it's not only a very small group of people who are being protected. professor, we have time for one more question. you don't have to have been a student of mine. i welcome all questions.

and. i know there's one more question. somewhere in the back there, we go. i'm just wondering what type of roadblocks and hardships you endured while researching this project? so one of the main roadblocks. that i encountered was my own emotions. it is a sad story. the one i often thereafter devastating. not only do i had to write about them, but i had to hear them over and over again. and sometimes this prevented me from writing. i spent weeks just being like, i don't want to write that paragraph. that's a brutal paragraph. read. so that was one of my emotions. one of the main roadblocks i have to say. the other one is how hard the government made it to find the archive that were required.

the next one, like i said, the difficulty finding people who are willing to speak to me and not willing to speak. the four characters of four people that i follow, i do use their name. they allowed me use their name. but often i mentioned people with pseudonyms, but even getting them to allow me publish their stories with pseudonyms hard. they were scared. so finding them and then being able to write their stories was hard. going to cuba. doing research in cuba is very hard. and yet many cubans had been deported. so i had to go there. so. so that was that was almost impossible. but but it it happened so almost as key. yeah, i would say those were the main roadblocks. oh. was one more. i wanted to make sure that i didn't put anyone at risk by writing this book. at times i would when i found people in parks, i, i, they told me a story that i knew would

cause problems. i used it. and for the four main people i did want to use their real names. so i. i had to make sure through their lawyer, sent through others, that this book, you know, morally, ethically impact the future lives of people. i wanted to talk about the past, about what was happening and about what we could do. i didn't want to affect people's lives through this research. so that was also one of the roadblocks. thank you for that question. i believe you have given an incredible artifact here, something that it's left behind for all us to learn from it, but also to get through the difficult of learning about these stories. like i said, there's only four main persons that see their stories, but then there's also many many more that intertwine with these four main persons and. so the ability to be able to

have that many people into this one book, but also to have it come out on april in an election year at a time when we are in desperate. absolutely desperate need, not just in the border states, but in all of the states to have history, to have facts, to have truth, to have compelled stories that this is the of what professors are going to be doing. right, especially to mexican professors here. mexican born, by the way, that are going to be lifting the veil in and demonstrating and showing that the united states of america can be a much more humane country. everyone please help me. thank professor