you will hear from many authors and have chance to talk them as well. find the full schedule at booktv.org. human rights, immigration, voting rights, race in america and politics are some of the subjects we will talk about. we are kicking off with a panel on human rights. you are watching booktv c-span2 live from the university of arizona. ...

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[applause] you can visit the student union for more information on matter visit them at your website. your gift will certainly make a difference. out of respect for the authors in our fellow audience members, it is time to turn off your darn cell phones. i will do the same myself here. let's introduced these guys and get the show on the road here. on stage here is my good friend, margaret regan. i've known market for more than 25 years. we both lived away at the tucson weekly. she is one more journalism awards and i can tell. she's the author of two books about the border. the death of use and mean and deported stories of immigrant families under fire. we also have to reset duncan, attorney for the author of the guantánamo diary. i'm going to get this right. mohammed do -- all right.

that's the last time i'll say that. he's been in detention at one time the most since 2002. a federal judge ordered his release in 2010 but the u.s. government has been inciting the order and it does not look as though he's leaving anytime soon. last but not least we have luis alberto urrea, author 13 award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction. the hummingbird's daughter in the doubles highway or two of them. he did live here for a time in the 1990s and we like to think of him as an honorary local literary hero. welcome back, luis. margaret, let's start with you. in your first book, you tell told a story that haunts me to this day about a 14-year-old choral looking out for her 10-year-old brother went across the border january 2008.

she got sick. she was abandoned by the coyote bringing her group across. one of the things we often lose track of when we talk about the building of these beautiful walls on the border, these 50-foot wall of his the humanity of the people crossing. i would like you to talk a little bit about the story. >> okay, yeah. joe céline was a 14-year-old girl who died in our desert two hours from where we are sending in this comfortable room right now. she was like so many kids left behind in mexico and central america and their parents desperate to earn a living and keep the kids alive went to the united states to work. her mom was in los angeles working some low-wage job. took her years to save up money to bring joe céline and her little brother to the united states. the mother thought they were traveling with a group they cared about them and they travel

to call long-distance. she was from el salvador making the trip extra long. by the time these immigrants get to the arizona border, they are already in pretty bad shape physically. they've had a grueling trip of maybe two weeks. a lot of gastrointestinal illnesses from the food they been eating in the places they been stating. when they get here, this is the most challenging part, walking through the arizona desert. one of the results of the wall is not the walk the migrants must take when they get here is far longer than it used to be. when i first started writing about immigration in 2000, people had a five-mile walk around the fences we had back then. now with these great big walls, and joe céline and her group faced a five-day walk and that is through mountain and desert in southwestern arizona. she got very ill after several days. they believe she drank some of

the accounting quarter. the ranchers throughout the public land in these tanks of water for cows that are contaminated with it. but cows can handle in human beings cannot. she became very ill, vomiting, and brought to the point where she could not walk another step. he has a whole group of people within. he abandoned her come a 14-year-old girl in the desert, dragging away her 10-year-old brother who begged to stay with her. they took him away. joe's a linguist left behind and nobody even knew she was missing until that weekend when the little brothers that i feel i'm with his mother in l.a. three weeks later her body was found by a volunteer for no more deaths. this is a terrible tragedy of a young child trying to be reunited with her parents in the united states and kind of what

i'm writing a lot about right now, this whole separation of families. in this case a disaster was the death of the child. >> the least from a lectern to something somewhat familiar in your book, the doubles highway to veracruz across the border in 2001. what true you particular story? >> i had already dunn three border books and i've been writing about the border in different ways, poetry and fiction as well for a long time. little brown actually contacted me and asked me if i'd be interested in doing this book. honestly i thought no way. it's too much and the responsibility for all those stats were too much. i have some border patrol pals here can i buy will confess in front of them, i'm not going to deal with the border patrol. they scare me, man. all those things in my editor -- it wasn't my editor yet said you

trust anyone else to tell the story? i said heck no. he said exactly. you should tell it. they died in may and i started looking into it in august of that same year. very similar stories. they came than they were promised a job in florida picking oranges comment a fairly easy job. they were recruited. one of the points of the book was to try as we agreed that little brown, create the trojan horse that i could write this true crime saga and put every secret i could learn about the border and everything i already knew into it so americans could find out what was really going on. one of the things that shocked people was there was this smuggling organizations. people don't just automatically -- i always say on the road, and you know, we who were born in mexico don't have

an undocumented immigration plans that kicks off number 13 and tells us how to go. pete will bring us or show us the way and these guys were lied to, paid a lot of money, brought to submit to and then sent into the desert with an inexperienced guy who almost died in the process. it was very similar, this experience of meeting this alien terrain. you are not ready to deal with not having the proper supplies. a couple of guys had waddles of pepsi. >> to reset, you're dealing with a different case with the writer of the guantánamo diaries. it does something similar by putting a human face on one of the people being held in u.s. custody in guantánamo. who is seeing how did he end up in guantánamo? >> a 45-year-old man from mauritania, which is a country in africa.

in 2001 a couple months after 9/11, local authorities came to his house and asked him to come to the police station to talk to them. he drove in his own car to the police station and then he disappeared. he was taken from mauritania to jordan where he spent eight months. he was then taken to bagram air force base in afghanistan and finally august 2002 was brought to guantánamo and has been there ever since. mohammed do is one of the kindest and funniest people i've ever met. i was fortunate enough in march of 2014 to go back to mauritania to meet his family and friends. one of his friends told me a story that really captured his spirit. he was talking about when they were children together they used to play soccer with the neighborhood children and his children did they would sometimes get competitive than they would kick each other, trip

each other in an effort to make a goal. i remember a was getting competitive and he tripped another child who fell down. where their children would keep going, he stopped and was apologizing profusely and refuse to continue the game and telling me sure the child was okay. and the tenors i've known him, that is exactly the spirit here shown to me. he is always shown such kindness. although he's imprisoned at guantánamo and his circumstances are horrible and is separated from his family, when i meet with them, the first thing he wants to know is in my opinion how are the members of the team and what's happening with my family and are their families. an incredible generosity of spirit. he's also just unbelievably funny. one of the stories we tell pier one of my cocounsel asked him early on to tell us about all the times he'd been interrogated by the u.s. military and the circumstances of that. he wrote that is ridiculous.

that's like asking charlie sheen to describe other women he's dated. [laughter] so he's been in guantánamo since 2002 and without a habeas corpus issue in seeking his release. we had a four-day hearing in front of an impartial judge in the district of columbia during which he testified for two days and was checked into cross-examination by government lawyers and at the end of that in 2010, and judge james robertson ordered his detention was unlawful and he should be released. he is still there because the obama administration appealed the decision and the court of appeals found a lot had changed slightly in the time since the judge robertson issued his decision. they sent the case back for reconsideration under the standard and it's been sitting there ever sent. >> the least, you really unloaded on the border policies

between mexico and the united states in the doubles highway now is more than a decade ago. i imagine you say these policies are even worse today than they were then. >> huge wall. huge. i can tell you that. [laughter] beautiful, too. it just got 10 feet higher. in the book i call it the politics of stupidity which actually came from on the ground folks. you know, there's never a dearth of opportunity to look at malfeasance and paranoia and humanity in this situation. every year -- have consciously tried to back off a little bit because i was feeling like i had become border boy. even when i don't want to come aboard her stuff comes at a period they keep pulling me back. one story that i was proud to get men on, for example, recent

is a reporter, i will give her a shadow, aaron mcintyre, wonderful reporter from the san diego area has gone on to some national renown. but she had to she had the beat of the deported u.s. soldiers that americans don't know about. they call them green card soldiers. so we got the opportunity to introduce her to an editor. yes, a playboy. next-line it's about that. but a chance to take this story globally. we went and did a story about these guys, deported soldiers who came to the united states and were promised by recruiters the opportunity to get their citizenship once they've served and they went to war for us. guess why? deported. these guys, there's a group in tijuana, the deported boyers house. you can look at them on facebook and talk to them if you want. this gentleman's software is and

were betrayed and thrown out of the country. there are thousands of them all over the world. not just mexican. europe and so forth. that everyday dress in their full dress uniforms and stand at the border watching americans go home. they hold up flags. people were really shocked i think to hear this story. their ironists. i know people here are probably involved in a lot of border issues anyway. you will know as soon as you're exposed to that world you have a really ironic eye. my friends in the media, the coyote is there in their own way ironic as well. they see the irony that they are not allowed to come home until they die in their bodies can be brought home and buried with full honors. it just does not make sense.

so they are lobbying to try to get permission to come home and do whatever penance. some of themselves in ways that they maintain a classic problems that returning veterans have and they should have been sent to the va for counseling, not out of the country. so they are lobbying very hard to come home. >> amazing story. margaret amis detained and deported what happens in the undocumented immigrants in the legal system and again put a human face on how the system choose people out. i wonder if you can talk a little bit about the experiences of yolanda, a woman who gets caught up in a prostitution sting and ends up in prison. >> you want is a good case. she was brought to the united states by her and who had custody of her. when she got here, she never went to high school. she went to work for us.

she worked in fast food joints. she worked for a cleaning company and she told me she had really advanced and become a manager. she was really part of her skills. always, always work. she had three kids. the second and third child whereby a man who ended up becoming an abuser and feeding her regularly. one night he practically killed her and she fled the house of the children, applied for another cleaning job in which you got there, it turned out to be an old-fashioned brothel operated out of a motel. she sort of fell into the clutches of those guys. she realized what it was, tried to get out. they threatened to kill her in the kids, center pictures of the kids on her cell phone so she was forced into this ring. eventually it got busted and she is charged with the crime of prostitution. so she did serve a couple months in jail in phoenix, but as an

immigrants find, you know, they do their time for a crime and then end up in detention. she was found to be undocumented. the phoenix legal authorities handed her over to ace. when i met her in a low she was 32 years old, separated from the children for two years. keep in mind these children are american citizens. you have to think about from the point of view of human rights, what is the point of a child rights to be raised by his or her own mother and father. the only reason i know about yolanda and the only reason hearst or hasn't happy ending is an amazing attorney at the university of arizona law school found out about her and fought and fought. she tried to get her out on compassionate release. this is a woman who committed a

crime of moral turpitude. she was a. they would not let her out of detention even as she awaited deportation hearings, even though she was the mother of small children, the primary caregiver and even though the youngest two children were with the abusive child while she was in a detention center. sending a lost every case all the way up to the highest levels and then she started looking at the case again is a good lawyer will do from another angle. she said you know, this woman was traffic. they denied her visa on the grounds of her having been an abused woman because the moral turpitude ruled that out. if you're abused while you are here, but with a crime, you can get something called a use these. the courts have found she was ineligible because she was a person of bad moral error. soon enough on another angle and this is interesting because you got i.c.e. under homeland

security. we've got the justice department. this time she went to the justice department and eventually succeeded in improving yolanda was a victim of trafficking and entitled to a trafficking visa. so her happy ending is she's back with their kids, she got the kids back from the batman. her life is going great. in terms of legal staff, undocumented immigrants are not entitled to attorneys as they fight their immigration cases. she was entitled interestingly for the crime of prostitution, but she just had a very good fortune to come to the attention of this pro bono attorney. there are many, many other immigrants i would dare to say, the majority who never had the benefit of legal help. a social worker told me is that great she got out. she knew her and said yeah it's

great, but i've got another woman with the exact same story, no attorney and she's getting deported. >> you did visit the private prisons. can you talk a little bit about that, what it's like to go to one of those prisons? >> yes, eli detention centers in between tucson and phoenix hidden away in the countryside by design. the corrections corporation of america bought a huge chunk of land it miles east of the highway. it's full of criminal prisons. it's a gigantic piece of land. their detention center is only one of their enterprises. they run regular penal systems for the state of arizona and for the state of hawaii for some reason up there as well. but i was interested in the detention center. as i said, one of the third-largest in the states they cannot have many from the united states government to have detained immigrants.

the more money they spent on immigrants, the lower profits are. the place is horrible, food is awful, people are treated badly. the guards are paid not very well. the cards are fairly brutal to the people. they actually use solitary confinement for a disciplinary measure. these are people, again, anyone who is there is not on a criminal charge. they are on the status violation of immigration, which is not considered a crime. that is why they're not entitled to a lawyer, but they are treated by criminal prisoners. one of the bad things about the private prison corporation is very very harsh with the families. they have very few family visiting hours. when people do visit the guards treat them harshly. i was present for a visio one day that i couldn't believe how nasty they were to the little kids there to visit their detained parents. it is a huge thing.

we've got 250 detention centers and a good half of them are run by private prison corporation who are making very good money holding these detained immigrants. >> to reset come as bad as that sounds, i know he's suffering much worse at guantánamo. talk about the experiences he writes about in his boat. >> he started writing his book in 2005 shortly after he first met with lawyers from his legal team and the book talks about them on that for my he's picked up in mauritania to when he gets to guantánamo and the most terrific treatment he received at guantánamo. in 2003, 2004, he was tortured. he was beaten. he was threatened with death. they threaten to bring his mother to guantánamo is the only female detainee if he didn't cooperate and they talked to him about what that meant and of course you can imagine what that

meant. he was deprived of all sensory. the windows in a cellar blocked out that he couldn't do that. he was forced to drink water so he couldn't sleep. he was deprived of food. it was a horrible story. it is horrific. it's not just his word, reports of government reports that document reports. they also talk about the abuse. they have stopped, but they continue to be detained from his family. u.s. prisons graeme. -- when you're convicted of a crime and incarceration, you can hurry about them is limited to

phone calls that a on a schedule approved by the government. one of the real tragedies of guantánamo is very, very close to his mother which is why the u.s. military threats against him to get him to cooperate. but he was incarcerated, his mother passed away. he had a phone call with his family arranged by the icrc and they were afraid to tell him because he so isolated. he figured something was wrong and so he sent out a request to talk to his lawyers to figure it out and it took two weeks for the phone call to happen and ultimately we got it and i had to tell them over the phone pathos the most important person to him. we are grateful he's no longer being tortured, but certainly he is still suffering and not suffering should end.

>> luis, in her book across the way he looked at the deplorable conditions at tijuana in the 1980s and 90s if i recall correctly. wondering if he will talk about what it was like then and have you returned to see what it like? >> yeah, one of the interesting things about tijuana is that it was sort of a slightly porous dam where the tide with catch and sorrow and some of the bodies was sort of settle and make do. one of the places a lot of the immigrant population would settle is the tijuana garbage dump. you probably don't know this, but it is on a hill and there's another smaller hill rising out of it. if you climb up the hill, you have the most beautiful panoramic view of san diego in the garbage pickers sit there and watch san diego and you

think if i could take every american there and say he wouldn't understand undocumented immigration. here is someone trying to find a runover dog to cook it to feed the children, looking at disneyland 24 hours a day across the fence. it is hard to say no, stay there. it was a life of deprivation in horror. hunger. you know, christmas eve 1990, 14 babies died of exposure. you think that's not possible, right? san diego. they are on a hill and it's cold and rainy and windy and there in bad health and they are badly in those children died wrapped in plastic trying to stay alive. so conditions today are really peculiar in that tide continues. we of course have had the eruption of narco warfare was

change the ground game in tijuana pretty radically for a while. you realize and act out more american visitors in disney world every year kind of back off on the violence. a lot of those garbage dump people have realized their version of the american dream and that parents take the garbage and put their kids in school and they gave everything they had quite literally to put the skids in school and most kids learn to read and got educations and now they are not picking garbage, the doing jobs and tijuana, which is fascinating. in spite of all the propaganda you hear about this and this tidal wave of an asian, you know, the tide is going backwards. harper's magazine reported this month there are 140,000 undocumented people down this year. people are staying in changing.

the interesting side for me, a little more positive in some ways. at the tijuana garbage dog, a guy opened a taco stand. there's 300 families living permanently. opens a taco stand, puts it in an old computer and changes it into internet café. so the garbage dump has an internet café. the kids who learn to read of course have learnt computing. so these kids were going to the taco stand, calling up youtube and seeing all their favorite hands. in other words, you know, information, art, culture, that can't be stopped by barbed wire. we are in a world now for the least of those are connected to the most of us and that is

something transformative and interesting. >> do they have a twitter feed? >> here's the deal. people now are getting cheapo phones and they do in fact do facebook. l.a. face they call it. i've garbage dump people who follow me. they asked me for money. >> and tossed it. you told me before you are really drawn to the stories of undocumented immigrants because they were mentioned in stories about your own family's experience at the turn of the last century. talk a little bit about that. >> i would love to. st. patrick's day is coming up on thursday. it is really interesting st. patrick's day just as an example of how the united states as a whole celebrate our immigrant ancestors. everybody loves the irish now. they are great. it wasn't so great in the

1850s when a million desperately poor refugees from the irish famine, which is more properly called the great hunger because england was shipping for ireland the whole time the famine was going on. they flooded the shores of the united states. a million people. the chewing mind kind of what's happening in the area and europe. floods in floods of people. everybody said who are these people? they are catholics? that will threaten our democratic project. we will have a pope in charge of this. they were considered extremely alien. the majority spoke irish because they were poor. just like today, so many indigenous people coming up from central america and mexico. the people at the bottom are most harmed by these big economic events. and they had a terrible time in the united states. as you know, my ancestors did

very poorly in philadelphia. my great grandparents, my great-grandfather, timothy regan died as a young man leaving his children orphaned. his wife died a couple years later. and my grandfather, jeremiah t. regan went to work as an 11-year-old on the streets of philadelphia. i hold the stories my whole life. the first time i went to the border in 2000 what was happening in douglas, i thought this is the same story. this is the same story all over again. i saw hundreds of people being cycled in and out of the border patrol jail in douglas. posted at crossing crossing point in the series are covered with dust, treated badly, reviled and tossed out. you know, the united states, obviously the nation of immigrants take a lot of criticism from people who argue this is all a rapacious thing.

americans on and native americans were here first. reese celebrate this idea and yet every time there's a new wave of immigrants, we treat them badly and we hate them and say they are destroying the american project. from the irish in the 1850s to the mexicans today who have made america not great anymore. and no, this kind of racial hatred is directed to all the groups over all of our long history. one more thing being from philadelphia, benjamin franklin, are steamed for her father was upset about the germans in 1780 philadelphia. there is this place called germantown. he said they are so clannish and they are not getting with the american program. going back to the earliest days of the republic, we identified

the other and reviled them. >> to reset, there's a fascinating story about how guantánamo diaries got published. talk a little bit about hold the whole process works. >> share. my cocounsel for >> with mohamed ooh, they gave him a note that the military had provided to him and wish you had written many pages of his story. the months following that, we started to get letters from him, pieces of the diary. we have a full 400 pages of his story. under the system at guantánamo, everything a detainee rights is present to be classified and the only way his legal team can share with someone outside of business security clearance to senator clearance process. we attempted to do that and the government refuse to do it. the next seven years we litigated that issue but the course trying to get the diary out and eventually realized if

we continue to litigate them is, the story would never come out. in 2012, and we wait for protection the attorney-client privilege in the diary went back to guantánamo to be reviewed by whoever it is that reviews that i never sent back to us. the first time it was under this made it past a vacation or guantánamo called protected. the the government doesn't use it in any other circumstances other than guantánamo. that meant we could share with members of our team who didn't have security clearances are we still couldn't share with the public. so they complained and sent it back and a year later we got back the unclassified version and we were able to share that with larry, the wonderful editor of the book and murray worked to consolidate the book to maintain his language and the tone of the book here he's done an amazing job to keep that place. that is how the book came out and why you first got to read

his story 10 years after he wrote it. >> how did you get involved in the case? >> he disappeared from his family 2001. they had no idea where he had gone. they thought he was still in prison in mauritania and the family was bringing food and money to the jail every single day for him. the presents were taking the money. his youngest brother was in germany studying and he read an article in a magazine that said he was at guantánamo. so it tells the story how he called his family screaming fake this is outrageous and his family was hanging up on him because they were afraid the government was listening and they would get into trouble. they eventually contacted a lawyer and asked him for help to find out if their family member was in guantánamo. that lawyer contacted a human rights lawyer in france who work with my cocounsel so he contacted her and we have been

wanting to get involved in the litigation because it was such an outrage and contrary to american values. we agree to contact the department of defense to find out if he was at guantánamo and were told they wouldn't tell us unless we found a hideous petition. so we didn't ultimately learned he was there and that's how we started on the long journey. >> luis, a selfish question for my perspective as a reporter, but you've written about the border in fiction and nonfiction element. i'm curious about the process if you can talk a little bit about the difference of telling other people's stories versus telling stories you are coming up with yourself. [laughter] >> you know, the big difference for me particularly in doubles highway, and a lot of the stuff i read about on this topic is a

deeply felt it was sinful for me to write what i call my day at the zoo reporting. a lot of people who write about the border or even things like, you know, the mexican american studies conflict. people come to a place and visit for a week or so and then they are experts and off they go. a lot of the books about the border to me are basically people who come in bright a curious book about the peculiar brown people doing weird little brown things that they don't have a lot of sympathy or understanding of the culture or humanity involved. when i was doing doubles highway, i had a lot of personal ventures and i decided no, it is not about the really. it's about everybody else's story. mark twain once said a version of nonfiction is simply writing

fiction because nonfiction doesn't actually have to make sense. you are telling the story that happened and it doesn't often make sense. so you have to honor those things and those voices as best you can. though i cannot decide if fiction and poetry, so often i use techniques of narrative that are sometimes i killed it, but i try to make that obvious when that really happens. as an example, a solid example of what i'm talking about, a guy in the story who past away with his son. he had come north and his son insisted coming within 16 years old. if you don't take me in going go by myself. the father said we will go together because they are trying to rebuild the damaged house for mom. and the son died from the heat in his father's arms and the survivors, the other guys said he had a little bit of money and

he threw it into the wind and then he took off his shirt and ran out into the sun until it killed him. so i wrote that in the book. you know, maybe a couple years later i got an e-mail from that man's nephew. this is something i'm sure all of us deal with the law. he said none of our family knew how he died until i read your book and i went and told him and i thought -- i was sober up. i apologize to him. he said it wants you to know i made that journey. i went to college. i'm studying finance i'm going to go back to the border and fix it. the quote was i just want americans to know what one can accomplish given the chance. [applause]

>> what's wonderful about this folks appears the ability to put a human face on the stories that we hear so much about. we've got about 20 minutes left. i want to throw it open to questions from the audience. if folks want to line up at the microphones here, we can hear questions. we will start right here. >> i wonder if there's a comparison between what is happening in guantánamo and the soviet gulags and if there is a proper comparison one could talk about there. >> well. that is an interesting question. i mean, guantánamo is in some ways a very lawless since the great plays. first the bush administration continued with the obama administration has been after to argue that the law is suspended. in the early days when he was being tortured all the

international protection, the human rights protection that prevent the government from torturing someone, that is suspended because of the war on terror. the other comparison would be just the secrecy. when you look at his book, you will still see reductions. when play starts out something like so anyway, and it's followed by seven pages of solid black. there's many of his words that still you cannot see. one of the really frustrating things for the whole process has been the secrecy. in my opinion, the american people have the right to know what happened at guantánamo to make their own decisions and opinions about that. one of the things that is so valuable about his book. one of the big reasons he voted is a conversation with the american people about what was done to him and why. at the end of the book he really invites that dialogue.

he has a hearing on june 2nd for the government will decide whether or not he should be released back and i'm very hopeful and pray that he will be in once he is out he can have a conversation with all of you and the rest of the american public about what happened to him and what the future will be so we don't have a similar dirt. in american history and the future. >> all right. over here. >> yes. i am a tribal member. i did for 12 years and i'm also a human rights observer on the phone at the nation trying to document human rights violations not only against the undocumented migrant, but also tribal members who are u.s. citizens. i just want to share something, a brief passage, which you may be familiar with and i will bring it into the present.

this is from pastor naimoli, if it come out germany. first they came for the jewish and i did not speak out because i was not jewish. then they came for the communists and i did not speak out because i was not a communist. then they came for the unionist and i did not seek out because i was not a unionist. then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. i will take liberties to continue that. then they came for the native americans that i did not speak out because i was not native american. then they came for the undocumented and i did not speak out because i was not

undocumented. >> thank you. [applause] >> over here. >> yes, thank you. [inaudible] and the job of historians is to provide and historic record on whatever topic you choose and hopefully a very historic record. based on your historic study, can anyone of you give us some notion what the prospects will be over the next four, five years on the issues you have studied and recalled in your books. >> i think margaret should answer that. >> thank you so much, louis.

>> i'm sure president trump will straighten everything out. >> i'm not an historian. they say journalists read the rest drafts of history, so that is what we are doing here today. i think things look to be bleak as far as immigration does. in november 2014, i went to southside presbyterian church, which is the longtime immigrant activist church in tucson, part of the sanctuary in the 1980s, part of the new movement today. it was the night obama with giving his speech about the deferred action for the parents of american citizens away all watched obama saying these are united states children. their parents had done nothing wrong other than to be here with papers that contribute to society. we are going to give them vouchers that would be renewable. everybody the church would say the struggle is over.

i am always so naïve. yeah, that's great. i'm so happy to hear it. of course there was a lawsuit filed almost immediately an sme opponent of an initiative that do, they filed it in the district at a court that would be very favorable to their side and not us what happened. the case was filed in texas with the judge who was very vocal in its anti-immigrant is an anti-obama views. since then -- that was a legal setback for obama. the tenor of the campaign again i'm not naïve. i have no idea how bad it would go. when that romney was the vice presidential -- arose as a presidential candidate four years ago -- however many years ago, he was talking about making things so difficult and horrible that they would self deport. at the time i said is that who we are as a people? or will target these people and make their lives more difficult

than they are at er. now we change that commitment leading republican put natural candidate says we are, we ourselves are going to deport 11 million people. either that or i'm not in terms of the gentleman who talked about history. you identify an 11 million people in the population to root out of their houses and their family. you have neighbors speaking against neighbors. destroying families, pulling people apart. i think libertarians would be a little bit alarmed about the massive increase in police powers that we would unleash if that is what we were doing. i have several stories of women pulled out of their houses by law enforcement officers early in the morning, pulling them away from their children, pulling them out of their beds been crying babies behind. is this what we want? unfortunately it seems this is

what a lot of american voters right now are wanting an applauding the idea that is what we will do. >> teresa, lewis, do you want to add anything? >> i think that those comments are really well said. in terms of guantánamo, president obama earlier established a plan to close the prison. the plan includes continuing the military commission process for the men in the men and in indefinite detention speeding up the review process to see if we can be released to their homes and speed up the efforts to get people home. the periodic review board process doesn't clear president obama's plan to continue the indefinite detention and that is troubling. the american justice system has always had this principle that you try someone -- if you think someone has done for the wrong company charge them with a

crime. you try them as a fair trial. if they are convicted you detain them and if they are acquitted to release them. the idea we can continue to detain people for as long as they want based on fear they will do something without evidence and a fair hearing that they have been sent and it's un-american. i'm concerned president obama's plan continues that and they are hearing so much that will get worse in the future. i hope we as american citizens start to push back to america's commitment to civil human rights. [applause] >> i was just hoping you pass me by. [laughter] i agree with what everyone has been saying. but you know, back to what margaret said earlier about the wave. the focus is swinging towards

muslim people. i hate to say this, but a lot of people in my community are like thank god. they are going to go after muslim people. sometimes it is interesting. i teach in chicago and we are segregated city that people don't often acknowledge it. you know, you teach a class and you don't know if someone's middle eastern or mexican. you see the classes started sifting out. then they select out. it's such a difficult question. in chicago for a while, the word on the street was i.c.e. would go to pta meetings and grab brad parents coming in. that is to send kids -- mom would never come home and they are people working with those unaccompanied minors in chicago.

i would say a lot of history all in fire falls upon conservatives and so forth. president obama has been really big on deportation. so there's something systemic i think about our panic and they just can't stand how much suffering is set off. i think we are all may be too dreamy and not realistic enough, but i can't believe that we can't find some humane solution to allow people to survive. [applause] >> my good friend hector acuna made a t-shirt. i'm not a terrorist. i'm just a mexican. >> over here. >> can you tell us what he's been charged with or has he been charged? >> he's never been charged with a crime of murder. he is detained solely under the

law of war. so the allegation he was part of al qaeda and what i spoke about in 2010 under at the lowest standard and the american justice system which is a preponderance of the evidence standard that they could not show he was part of al qaeda and he should be released. >> he did have some training at some point but he walked away from the organization. >> that is true. he was living in germany and the late 80s and 1990s and traveled to afghanistan like so many young arab men to fight against the communist government there which was at the time a pressing religious expression. so he trained in an al qaeda camp in ultimately spotted a battle. at the same time the people fighting the government were being funded by the united states government who is also providing them with weapons and ammunition. in 1991, he went back to germany

and that was the last he ever had with al qaeda. so he did swear an oath of loyalty at a time the united states and al qaeda were on the same side. there is no evidence that he ever engaged in support of efforts of al qaeda after the organization dramatically changed and began to focus efforts against united state. >> over here, please. >> so i'm sort of an activist around the issue of k-12 education. i am wondering what prospects he lost the war how we can make your story part of the baseline education that our kids get. i am talking k-12. like you start to learn about the second world war before you get to high school and you learn about the atrocities that occurred. any ideas on how we can

integrate the atrocities that are promulgated by our own government into our current and i'm a public school activist into our current k-12 system. >> i imagine if you try to did make that very quickly in arizona. >> i know it's a very creative mindset there to figure out how to subvert. [laughter] >> i can talk about that a little bit. i think it kind of goes both ways. you know, one faces prejudicial thoughts on each side. so for example, you know, a lot of places i go, everybody has this impression that the border patrol guys are rampaging rabid monster races. you can say let me tell you a story about some of the agents i know in who they really are. so that touch of the shared humanity reaches across every gap in my opinion the finest

people trust the teller. i can say that we as writers and speakers have an unbelievable opportunity if not a calling to go out and talk. you know, and i've gotten a really immense blessing. one of my big freak books and i have kind of lost amid touring career and now i talked to the kids guide. i spend much of my years going to the school is talking about kids and i'm often a first author. they got a chance now thanks to the nea to have books these kids will read. that is incredible. so i put the challenge out to my fellow writers. i did it in la jolla, california for a school for my old neighborhood in san diego could not afford to rent the school bus to come see me speak.

how much was it? would 248 bucks. so we rented the bus. so i put a challenge to my friend, if you go on book tour, agree to spend $250 on your trip on inner-city kids somewhere to help them out. [applause] it doesn't cost us anything. and little things you can do. i always want to go to schools that have kids who need just a human touch, you know. i am going to tell you, not to harp on my old subject, but your border patrol agents need human touch, to. we all need to be reminded that we are a family and in spite of all the arguments and fights we are having, there is hope. when kids feel hopeless, which is what i've seen and i know you are seen, art reaches out to

them. just like the kids in the dump with you two. you can't stop art. my job is to try to infuse art and the subsequent hope and action. you can't reach everybody, but all you need to do is reach one kid in every school to feel like you change the world. >> already. [applause] a great applause line to add our session on. sorry we didn't get to other questions, but we are out of time. i like to thank our panelists, margaret regan, theresa duncan. a big round of applause for them. [applause] thanks for attending our session. your support for the festival is important. please consider becoming a friend of the festival. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> book tvs live coverage of the tucson festival of books continues. and just a minute, one of the panelists you just saw, martha regan will be joining us here in

the gallagher theatre at the campus of the university of arizona. we will be talking to her about her book come about immigration and some of the issues she is found. 202 was the area code. 748-8200 those 00,000 in eastern central time zone. 748-8201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. we still have a full day of festival coverage coming up from tucson. you will hear from two pulitzer prize winners in just a few minutes. that is timothy egan and t.j. stiles. two of the authors will be talking about their books. also an author panel on demographics, politics and so if you go to booktv.org, you can find a whole schedule their end you will be able to see what you want to watch. ..

is that people walk very long distances well west of where we are, the most -- the most crossings take place at the reservation which is very distant from here. they have what they call

pedestrian barriers which keep vehicles but allow people to walk through. that's about a 5-day walk. you cannot carry enough water for a five-day walk and not keep you dehydrated. >> so the wall has been effective? >> in is sense that yes, it has pushed people farther into the will derness so that they go around it. the effect of the wall is to increase the rates of deaths and also to increase the profits of the coyote, smugglers because they can charge more. >> were you able to talk to any cayotes? >> i did not talk to cayotes. this focuses on the people already here in the united states. 11million undocumented. what happens to people that have been living in the united states for a long time, many of them since childhood and get caught in violation and gets caught in

the system. >> one of the things we didn't get too much on the panel is what you call the profit industry. >> yeah, right. we hear about this in the criminal prison discussions to mass immigration. starting in 1980's we began having a policy of detaining immigrant. we didn't really have detention centers every since we shut down ellis island in 15950's. we were going to do detention centers, what do you do, you start meeting prisons, you go to the private sector because they can do things and corrections corporation of america began around 1983, first project in houston, texas. they moved to the regular sector also. there's a difference between

detention centers run by them and detention centers run by the federal government, we only have 11 out of 250 detention centers, we only have 11 that are roughen by the federal government and those are much more humane. the more they spend on prison, the less profit. okay, well, we have north of tucson, 16 miles north of tucson we have a hole complex of systems that are run by the corporation of america. the one i'm interested in the eloy detention center, the third largest and the only one in arizona that holds women, 15 or 1600 people are there on a typical day. it used to be a regular prison and renovated to become a detention center, but you would

be hard pressed to see the difference. it's very important to emphasized that they are not being held on criminal charges, they are being here to guaranty presence at upcoming deportation hearings. they have regular lockdown, correction corporations of america uses solitary confinement as punishment. women are complained -- >> have you gotten a taste, marcia go ahead with your question. >> thank you. i wanted to ask about prisoners

of eloy and referred to the children are treated to the prison corporation train. >> and thank you very much for answer. >> we do have two family detention centers in texas now where there are children. the eloy detention center when i wrote about attending visiting day the guards were harsh with the children coming to visit their parents. i don't think anybody trains them to be mean to children. i think that asia wrote in my book, i think that guards in that situation still working in a brutal environment and they become brutalized themselves. but i saw many instances in the

waiting room where a little kid, they have to wait a long time to see their mom or dad, little boy swinging on the gate and the guard really yelled at him and i never really saw anybody to say, this is a happy occasion, get to go see mom and dad. i think that, you know, prisons, image prison culture as a rule tends to that direction of unkindness. >> john, please go ahead. >> hi, good afternoon to both of you. so i'm an attorney and i did immigration law for a year and became a little familiar with the immigration and nationality act and -- i was going to ask a question, i still am but i want to make some commentary first. i think the -- the people are coming from the south of the border are economic migrants and the muslims represent a kind of

acute national security problem. they are both problem populations that will have to be dealt with, so my question is, i don't understand why you as an attorney think that because these people have children that they're immune from our immigration laws. now if i cheat on my tax and i happen to have a child, the irs is not going to, you know, cut any slack for me and it's the same with any area of the law. now, i want to hear what you have to say. >> oh, okay, first of all, i'm a journalist and i'm not an attorney so making that very clear, i didn't say that they were immune to immigration law, i'm just saying that as our policy now stands with no path to citizenship for these people this is what happens to mothers and fathers being separated from their children. i know many people, of course, are oppose to -- to the path to citizenship, but what i'm saying

is wherever you stand on immigration and, you know, unauthorized entry into the united states as a reporter i'm trying to let you know, well, what happens to actual people in actual lives when they are subjected to harsh treatments and lose custody of their own children. >> editor at tucson weekly and she's written a couple of books on immigration, the death of josslyn, immigration stories from the borderlands came out in 2010, detained and deported. stories of immigrant families under fire came out last year. teresa is in wilmington, indiana. go ahead, teresa. >> what i want to know is why we spend so much on illegal immigration, they're way behind and the american kids lose out and my other question is, why

should we repay everything for illegal immigrant when our veterans that have fought in the war can't get healthcare from the va and they're homeless? i just don't understand immigration, why can't they go back to their own country and fight for their own rights instead of making us taxpayers have to pay for everything, for housing and everything? don't you think that takes away from the american families? >> teresa? >> yes. >> it's not factual that the american taxpayers are paying for all kinds of healthcare and welfare treatments for undocumented immigrant. those -- these are people who live in the shadows, they're not even entitled to health care under obamacare, that was one of the important points. as far as educating the children, the way we pay for our education system is through real estate taxes, every immigrant living in the united states is paying taxes either via the rent that they're paying and the

already transfers that to taxes or they're paying tacks on a house that they might own, it's not true that they are not contributing to the education of their own. >> you tell the story of shannon who worked at a subway and her mother lydia spent a lot of time in the hospital and i presume that they did not pay for that care. >> yeah, well i don't know who paid for her care then, it's possible that she had health insurance because they were working people so they had money. >> so the other point that teresa made was about education. >> okay. >> are undocumented illegal immigrant in the education system here in tucson, for example, what effect does that have? >> of course, as you may know we had a supreme court decision in 1983 that said we do not challenge children who come to

the schoolhouse door and ask them their identities, good for us, kids who are here in the united states, we educate them across the board. we do not terrorize people into not coming to the schoolhouse and i think that's something that is very good and that's a supreme court decision that's established law for 30 years now. as far as the kids coming to the school, you know, it's funny, in tucson we are very eager to have more children come to the school because our numbers are declining and the schools are working very hard to get more kids to come to the school. they're like any other children, i'm not sure what the issue is, they learn english very quickly when they come here, a little girl was my daughter's best friend in first grade in kindergarten, she came to school only knowing spanish and she learned english right away and turned out to be the best student. just like any population of kids, you're going to have the

kids of the bright learners and the kids who aren't. i think -- i was glad to have my children learning spanish themselves. >> next call for margaret regan. david, where is clifton? >> 160 miles on the northeast of tucson. we are a mining community here. >> yes, sir. >> can you hear me? >> host: we are listening. your question to margaret regan. >> caller: she mentioned there was no path to citizenship for migrants but there really is, they've just sat on it for 40 years and haven't pursued it and when my great, great tbrand parents came from méxico they became citizens right away and that's why we are here, so i really don't feel too bad about

them getting caught and sent back, but that was my comment. >> guest: if they try to pursue citizenship they're detained and deported. there's been many efforts, bipartisan efforts over the years to establish a way that they could like your grandparents come here and work hard and become u.s. citizens. >> host: is there a difference of opinion of legal mexican immigrant towards undocumented immigrant such as david? >> guest: yeah, absolutely, what we are seeing more and more a mixed status families. we have children as i said who were born here and see the troubles that their parents have grown through.

i gave a talk in northern arizona university, a young woman that was a freshman which you may know is the lettuce capital of the united states with undocumented workers, she came up to me, i have lived with that kind of fear my whole life. i mean a u.s. citizen and i was born here but i lived in fear because my father would be taken away. we had these people with established lives, we have undocumented people and u.s. citizens. >> ice and border patrol, what is their relationship with the immigrations who come across that they get across? >> guest: custom and border control are the people -- border

enforcement as their title says those who are guarding the borders essentially, but they do have 100 miles into the country and anybody can be stopped by the border stroll any times 00 miles into the country which applies to you and me as u.s. citizens, you will be stopped by border patrol and asked if you're a u.s. citizen. that's their role. they do a lot of the arrests. ice is more of the interior immigration customs enforcement, when you hear about raids on homes typically ice than border patrol and they're in charge of operating the detention system, the private prisons we spoke to they're operated under ice. >> next call from lee in naco, arizona. where's naco? >> i'm a retired educator, i'm on the border of méxico and southern arizona, literally i

see the fence that and i've lived here 40 years, i was -- i have a ranch of the border of arizona, i'm very much aware of immigrant flowing over the past 40 years. my question is i don't hear much information being discussed about deaths, but we have here in naco, we've had a number of tunnels about five of them have been discovered where drugs and immigrants had to pay to come across the border are used and i still right now to this moment they literally, the amount of immigrant coming across has been reduced since 2008 but still i see physically my property here at night there are -- there is movement, but i believe most of

this movement is from tunnels and i'm wondering if there are author here is aware of that. >> host: lee before we get an answer of margaret regan, what do you do, have you found people that have crotszed the border and what's your reaction to that? >> caller: well, this is 40 years that i'm sharing. they had a horse patrol, they used to run horses on our property and i had a relationship with them, with the border patrol but this has gotten so huge from 40 years ago till now it's unbelievable. before 2008, we -- i experienced literally 15 or 20i illegals walking right in front of my ranch, right in front of the border patrol station and then one summer, this has been about

10 or 12 years ago there was a shootout between, i understand, between -- they were drug cartel individuals, they were in black suburbans and that was back in like 2003, 2002, but it seems so me since 2008, 2009 the amount of trafficking is more -- it's less but it's still going on but i believe that wall does nothing for -- for that and the confusing thing is that i live close to the border, i see children go to the local school here and then when the school is out they go across the border. so there's some real serious problems. i've seen witnesses in douglas, arizona and naco, so there's some things going on that need

to be addressed and these tunnels here, this cartel has a lot of money and with a lot of money, a lot of things can get done. and i believe there's corruption with that money on both sides and the number of individuals coming across is less than it used to be but still going on. >> all >> host: naco, isn't that where they have the volleyball games periodically, yeah, i mean torques bring some really interesting issues, i don't really write about the drug cartels but certainly the advent of the various dangerous and money-grabbing drug cartels has been very much to the disadvantage not only of american citizens like you living along the border but al

to the immigrant and border patrol guy had told me once, 90% of the people are just hard-working people who are trying to get to the united states to a better life and often to reunit with family members that are here and they get mixed up in all of the discussion of drug cartels. there are two separate groups of people. the migrants are often held by the drug cartels now, they're charged fines and fees for crossing the borders. they have to pay to get by, they have to pay for their own safety and some people who have reported being coerced to carrying marijuana for them and the low-level guy gets arrested. the drug cartels, you know, they're a big huge conundrum in the united states.

we are providing the market. a lot of the guns are bought in the united states. well, the deportation hearings that i have gone to are right there in the eloy detention center, very interesting, they have a whole courthouse set up like any courtroom set up like anyone the judge presiding and the american flag and people go in there and i witnessed one one day, a guatemalan women, we have many by the way guatemalan women and men who are seek k -- seeking asylum and the woman was all alone, the judge and she didn't speak english, you have to read all of these documents, the only thing i can tell you that would get them translated and then we will have another hearing later, so people are in

there, you know, most of us don't really understand the law very well, if we had to represent ourselves in a court of law, they'd say you're a fool, you have a fool for an attorney if you represent yourself, these are people who are from another country and another culture, a lot of them are deported because they don't even understand what their avenue of defense might be. >> host: how long does it last? >> guest: brief, 10-15 minutes. >> host: you're on book tv. don rrghts are -- don, are you with us? >> let's try rudy, rudy is in south bend, oregon. we are talking about

immigration. >> caller: my name is rudy mendoza, i'm an immigration attorney here and i've been practicing and we had a pleasure of going to tucson at the beginning of the year and we saw firsthand everything that you're talking about in your book and what frustrates me is i'm watching the show today, is that you're attempt to go show the truth t reality behind the tension and what we are doing to the human being and people are expressing antiimmigrant sentiments and i want to thank you for having your courage, i'm watching all the way from indiana and frustrates me what people are saying about human beings and you're over here attempt to go show the truth t reality behind our policies with regard to immigration at the border. i just want today thank you for

that and i want you to keep on with the fight. i'm just very emotional and i can't believe everything that they're saying. >> host: rudy, before you hang up, what does an immigration attorney in south bend, indiana do? we don't think of that necessarily as needing immigration attorney. >> caller: well, i'm sure ms. reagan is aware, the latino immigrant population is growing immensely throughout the country and so you're seeing that in areas where there weren't immigrant before, wherever there's labor needed you're going to find immigrant. there's a lot of individuals who come from all over the world who are seeking work and a better way of life for their families and so we've been busy the last 15 years doing that type of work here in south bend. we are also close to the university of notre dame who has had a commitment to immigration rights and they were the ones

sponsored. >> let me go ahead and say and thank you for the work that you're doing with people who are in deep trouble. >> host: omar in indiana, let's get your call. >> caller: we keep summarizing 11 million immigrant and we categorize who are here illegally. what about those 11 million immigrant who are not criminals who have acclammated to the language and have learn it had language, what would be the forecast or repercussions of getting them deported and actually sending that labor out into back into countries that

experiencing growth with people that are bilingual that are able to take in calls or customer service and taking those jobs away from america the country and being put out into other countries because they have the ability and flexibility of bilingual options? >> guest: yeah. i read a very interesting book about a law professor at -- i think it was at boston college or boston university. he went down to guatemala to find deportees. they're american in all but their papers and they go to guatemala and they work when they are forced, some of them are being call agents down there. this whole idea of deporting all of these people in the loss of

labor force are pretty major. there have been a lot of studies, if we were to deport 11 million people, agriculture in the united states would fall apart, by some estimates anywhere from 50 and 70% of the people growing the food that we eat every day are undocumented, if they suddenly disappeared we would have a crisis and that's kept in one industry. >> host: why do you think the message, though, that illegal immigrant are taking jobs and straining our systems, why do you think that resinates with so many people? >> guest: i think these are really hard times for people. i think it's a big issue in the presidential campaign. the loss of jobs and specially people that are working and working, they don't get raises. people are looking to understand why. if you have seen the movie the

big short, it's about the wall street crisis which is entertaining and informative movie, that's about the wall street bankers making tons on money on bad loans and they make the money because they sell the loans, finally the whole economy collapses and the movie documents it pretty well and the narrator says as soon as it happens wall street collapse, a huge crisis, the housing bubbles and people are losing their jobs and people are going into foreclosure, what do you start hearing? this is the fault of the immigrant? this is the fault of the public union and you scapegoat people at the bottom of the barrel. as we all know no wall street banker, i think maybe one was prosecuted for everything that happened. so people are frustrated and in hard times they will look to find answers and unfortunately that's happened in arizona. arizona was one of the big foreclosure states and the antiimmigrant sentiments grew

dramatically and politicians use that to get elected. >> host: margaret regan has been our guest. detained and deported, stories of immigrant families under fire. we are here on the campus at the university of arizona with the tucson festival of books and several more author panels coming up. up next full of surprise and national book award winning author timothy eagan. this is live coverage of the tucson book festival. >> good morning, welcome, i'm going to be moderating this conversation this morning with timothy eagan. i want to expand thanks to c-span tv and book tv for

sponsoring and will last approximately one hour, including questions and answers till the end of the panel immediately following the session tim will be autographing books at the bookstore, that's 153 by the university bookstores . because you're enjoying the festival and i'm sure you all are, please consider joining the festival of the tucson festival of books. so become a friend by visiting the student union ballroom or go into our website. out of respect for the author, please turn off your cell phones, now, if you would.

this morning it's our pleasure to have timothy eagan. the worst hard time and the national best seller the big burn. tim's current book just released last week is entitled to immore eat irishman who became an american hero, a biography of thomas mar. he's sadly been largely forgotten since his death so tim what starked your interest in mar. >> well, thank you, bruise, it's great to be here in this lovely arizona morning, this huge crowd, i can't believe it. you people love books. [laughter] >> also i've been told -- a

number of times i've been told this is the best book festival in the world. [cheers and applause] >> but as someone who is interested in getting the truth right, i've been to -- i haven't been to every book festival in the world but my experience is it passes that task. i would like to think that i know my people's history. i'm one of seven kids, one after the other, the sort of classic irish family. i would like to think we knew our history and i was standing outside -- even though i thought i knew our history i'm -- irish american and i was standing outside the montana capital with the then governor brian, great guy, there was enormous and

given up in the time when a million irish were dying of hunger. who is hell has gotten into the statute? you call yourself an irish american and you don't know who thomas francis mar is. mideast -- most people don't know. one of the most famous irish up until kennedy came along. they were slaves and there was a free australia because of him. he packed, he knew abraham lincoln and daniel oconnel. man

who freed catholics in ireland. that's my job is to resurrect the great irishman who was flawed as well as brilliant. >> that is to be irish in ireland was to live in a land not your own and i wonder if you could comment on that as a way of giving background. >> right, he was born in 1823, previctorian ireland and they're getting into the probably 700th year under boot hill and you have to understand, i saw these parallels later what we now call ethic cleansing and what we now call apartheid and genocide, none of those terms were around,

all of those were applied to the irish and for almost 700 years it was a crime to be irish. they outlawed their language, they outlawed their sports, so the first thing the irish did when they moved to the first empire of new england empire, one of the first things is establish a herling club. they did everything -- they band the harp. round up the harpers and hang them. why why is the harp on the flag during the civil war, it's because it's a martyr instrument. people asked me, why are the irish, most of europe has fallen out of the romean catholocism.

every irishman and women fall his new religion founded by a serial killer. sorry. one thing that happened after brutal and they kicked them off the land and gave land to soldiers and that's 80 other of the irish didn't live on their own land and they say to this day, one of the worst things you can say, they sent 40,000 people or thereabouts into slavery, their descendants of them still.

they did everything they could to erase the irish people to take everything that made them a people, their songs, language, to take it away from them. he comes of age just as, you know, they've lifted some of the pencil laws by them but you can't serve in parliament unless you renounce religion and practice self-government. that sets the stage for his -- for his coming. >> that kind of beg it is question, i went to college in the late 60's, early 70's so it's hard for me not to see parallels sometimes. how does a young wealthy irishman whose father is parliament becomes revolutionary? >> the biggest crime in the history of ireland. now i want to put this in context, most people think that it was caused by the potato rot.

which it was. you could raise almost your whole family on an acre, you were a farmer and put tubers into the ground, it required almost no cultivation and you have pay they toe and you feed your family for a year. they dug up the potato and what came out black mess, it completely disappeared but at the time the crop is failing, people are starting to die but at the same time this is going on, ireland is raising a lot of other food, cereal, pork, they are the leadest exporter and families have found huddling together dead in the poor houses.

children are in ditches and sat clawed. the horrible scenes that they would describe when they would poke the conscious of the british empire, the indian nation sent corn, the people passed a hat and so mar comes of age at the time of the greatest crime in ireland's history and joins a group of revolutionary ies and they were all in their 20's. irish food is being raised by irish hands but it's not going into irish's mouths. to their credit in 1997 british prime minister tony blair apologized and said it was one of the great crimes of england,

we are sorry, don't take it so hard. blair's apology had a good effect, what would have been a shameful thing in ireland, you've asked who had been indicated, we couldn't just talk about the famen. a policy of extermination, if a million of them die, they weren't actively killing them, they were letting it happen and the man who was in charge of the famon, he said this death of a million irish was a hand of god and that was a cure for too many irish. if you go to the university, great hunger museum, there's a portrait, this man who could

wealthy families and came back and bought the land, they had the biggest house in waterford. he comes of age and this is completely radicalizing. they couldn't storm the british barricades. the brits had a larger garrison in ireland than the indian sub continent. the flag of england is flying over one-fourth of the land mass. so it goes nowhere, h e speaks, she doesn't fire shot and urges the hungry masses, let's stop

the food from leaving ireland that was -- stop the food and let the irish food stay here. >> i was surprised to see oscar wilde pop up in the book k you talk a little bit about who these people were? particularly the poets speranza. >> she went onto become the mother of oscar wilde, whatever he toured, i'm better known as the son of esperanza. she wrote powerful a million irish dead and the skeletons call. the crimes you will pay for.

he wrote a poem talking about his mouth was and lips and how attractive she was and they were very liberated and ahead of their time, irish progressives who were closer to late 20th century than the mid-early victorian age. all of these people were brilliant, the young ireland revolutioners and they were all hanged to be banned to australia n their later lives they're all kids in their 20's, so imagine taking on the brit i shall empire, they had the attitudes to bernie sanders supporters, why don't we just take the banks down. [laughter] >> won't people see that our cause is great and mar gave a

speech and half of them were starving. when marris vanished, they did to rebels of 1978, victoria, gracious majesty commits ban and tazmania has the most educated people vanished for life in the jungle of tazmania. he speaks five languages and talks to his dog. i will never make my mark, here i am. you can't describe how far australia is at this time. it's more than half, it takes nine months to get there. i will never see ireland again which he would not, i would never see my family again, he

saw lonely and so he -- the brits had thing to political prisoners, if you gave them your gentleman code of conduct that you would not escape, they wouldn't put you in a cage and whack you which is whey they did to petty criminals. he was never supposed to leave, his best friend had a 7 by 7-mile zone radius and they had lunch every friday. when he moves to his little place, he names his boat esperanza and spent many lonely afternoons sailing speranza. >> he marries twice and two very different women. >> right. there's no other way to say this, he's horny, a young man in

mid-20's and he falls in love with this daughter of a man who had been convicted of highway robbery, as they call them the highwayman. she was beautiful and he falls in love with her and eventually has a child and will meet later, i won't tell you how he is escapes from tazmania. takes him 12 days. my kids have worn me to stop giving parts of this book. [laughter] >> there's pirates, a lot of back and forth,ly just tell you that the way he gave up his pearls. dear, governor general, i notify you that as of noon tomorrow i shall escape from this place. [laughter] >> i remain forever your honorable servant. and that did his gentleman's duty. the government sent troops to get him, he says, he was so

flamboyant, catch me if you can. [laughter] >> and he takes off through the tazmanian wild. after 12 days hi does manage to escape, his young wife is going to meet him in america, but there's complications. >> why don't you say a little bit because there's an irony that later turns out into a tragic consequence for him? >> eventually because of the global irish, which is now, we do breed a lot, 70 million people worldwide. ireland is a country of 6 million right now but 70 million worldwide a lot in australia, most in the states, a lot in canada and a lot in europe. they put the pressure on queen victoria on how can you -- this country that's mostly progressive, they ban slavery

ahead of the u.s., they had rights of men were honored, et cetera, but on the irish they had a blind sight. victoria finally, this is years later convinced of all the seven young ireland rebels but because mar had escaped, but now he said i'm homeless exile and that's what he was for the rest of his life. >> we can't talk about irish americans without talking about immigration, that's the story. you can describe a little bit what new york city was like in 1852 when he arrived and how the irish were viewed in 19th century america. >> this is why i write about history. i don't believe the past is

dead. we have these periodic times in our history where we turn against people, only 1% of us is native americans. the irish were many waves, southern europeans and people from all over, but the irish were the -- most people had never been more than 30 miles of villages. they raised pigs and pay they toes and they got on cotton ships for 10 pounds and jammed in the corridors and one in five of them died in the passage. there would be seven or eight kids orphaned. but so they washed ashore and remember, there are rural people and come into this extraordinary

serious of cities, boston, new york, philadelphia, baltimore and most of them never go more than 4 or 5 blocks from where there ship, they crowd into the awful tents, just awful. the pigs and lie down together. they are just like they landed on mars. one and four new yorkers is from ireland, one and four. the biggest surge of immigration, a million 5 had left their country and they are clogged. they fill it had jails.

they filled what was call it had new york city lunatic asylum. this is awful, misery, how is this going to help our people? he's also encouraged because some of his fellow educating have done very well in this new country, there are lawyers, prosecutors, judges, writers, politicians, they have the year of the president, he speaks to 5,000, 10,000 people a pop, the new york city gives lab rate story of his escape and says this man the unit and he is essentially jesus for the irish. the backlash which you touched on is the no-nothing party. at one point second biggest political party in the united states, its peak in 180's, --

1850's, founded for antiirish but mostly antiirish, they elect a governor of massachusetts, a governor in new york and push through laws that make it hard for irish to become citizens and push through laws to make it hard to become civil servants and the irish dig the ditches, canals, sewers, take care of other people's children but it's very hard for them to become citizens, the no-nothing party burns catholic churches in philadelphia and burn an irish fire house, they burn irish neighborhoods, they say, get on the boat and go back, they treat them horribly, they draw pictures of monkeys and tails, they basically dehumanize them and that's what mar runs up against the no-nothing party before the civil war which rescues him and the rescues the irish is biggest opposition,

they have to clink from his head and they start spreading rumors that his escape was dishonorable. i mean, how can an escape be dishonorable. that's what he comes up as the no-nothing party. >> yo write that the irish face a dilemma at the outbreak of the civil war and involves slavery, would you like to talk about that a little bit? >> sure, there's an interesting passage, it's in the book from fredrik douglas, former slave and by the way, terrific novel call that turns on, douglas as a character going through ireland. direct quotes. i find myself treated, he said, they welcomed him and big crowds

for speeches. then he said he was appalled. only in american south have i seen anything worse, being slaves, of course, 4 million slaves, have i seen anything worse. they come to america and over about ten years where they are told that these blacks are if they're ever free will take their jobs. what happens to irish, they come to pick up racist attitudes. they're told by all their newspapers, don't, we won't fight to free the blacks because they'll come and take your terrible jobs. remember, they have the lowest realm. this is always the case f there's someone below you you don't want them to be free because you don't want them to take their job and there's a real split and abraham lincoln who if you haven't come to the conclusion that he was our greatest president, come to that

conclusion. this is one of the bits of bril ains hardly known. he names the best irishman a general. so marks the minute the war breaks out, mar said he had said i'm against it but there's nothing we can do about it, we might as well not break up. he went south, he was treated as a gentleman. they treat us very well. the minute the war breaks out, it changes him. he becomes more progressive than most if not all of the irish. this is the country that gave us refuge. this is the country ta took us in. i myself exile, i'm a fugitive, i'm wanted by the british empire yet i'm a friend of presidents

in this country. we have no choice but the fight for the union. because lincoln had named him a general, he then forms the irish bregade. fighting 69, a malacia in new york city. >> before we leave the topic, can you talk about the new york riots, a pif -- pivotal moment. >> he performs in all the major battles of the war. the irish couldn't organize a parade without getting into fisting cuffs. [laughter] >> they go down to the first civil run in bull horn, the irish did not run and suddenly all of the stories, where do these irish warriors come from.

they get all of this amazing press. the cover of my book, after the battle of bull run, it was a lost for the union but a win for the irish because they proved themselves in battle. they went out and visit it had irish bregade. they fight in the bloodiest single day in american history. 23,000 casualties in one day. ..

>> when john f. kennedy goes to ireland in 1963, triumphant return of the irish, a few months before mr. kennedy is assassinated, he gives a speech to the irish parliament, and he talks about the boxwood sprigs that the irish brigade put under the caps. and he says by that blood sacrifice, that's what made them american. and then he gives to the people of ireland a flag from that battle which was a harp and a sunburrst. and it -- burrst. -- burst. now back to the draft riots. 160,000 irish served on the union cause, and only two of the brigades had higher casualty rates. because of this, there's a lot of resentment by the middle part of the.