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 usedto be when it when i first started writing about immigration back in 2000, people had about a sci-fi old walk around the little things is that we had back then. now with these great big walls, the group faced a five-day walk and that is through mountain and desert. she got very ill after several

days and she deleted she drank some of the water. there are ranches throughout and they have water that are contaminated with bacteria cows can handle and human beings cannot and she became very ill and got to the point she couldn't walk another step. he has a whole group of people with him and they need to catch their ride so he abandoned their 14-year-old girl in the desert dragging away the 10-year-old brother who begged to stay with her but they took her away and she was left behind. nobody knew she was missing until the little brother set off the alarm. three weeks later her body was found by a volunteer. she's trying to be united with

her parents in the united states and that's what i'm writing about now. in your book across-the-board are from the 2001 only 12 of them survived what drew you to this particular story? >> i've been writing about the border in different ways for a long time and little brown actually contacted me and asked if i would be interested in doing the buck and i thought no way. it's too much. i have some border patrol panels but i thought i'm not going to deal with the border patrol, they scare me and all those things.

my editor said well you trust anyone else to do the story, you should tell if. so i started investigating and looking into that in august in the same year with very similar stories. they came and they were promised a job in florida picking oranges and they were recruited. one of the planes was to create the church and force -- dutch roach and -- kim there were big smuggling organizations and people don't just automatically -- i say on the road that we

were born in mexico don't have undocumented immigration gland but kicks off until it is ready to go. people bring us or show us the way and they were lied to and were brought and sent into the desert with an experienced guy that almost died in the process is very similar, this experience of meeting this alien terrain you're not ready to deal with and you're not having the proper supplies. a couple of the guys had bottles of pepsi. they didn't know they were going to be and you are dealing with a sort of different case with the writer of the guantánamo diary but it is something similar by the people being held in u.s. custody. how did he end up in guantánamo? >> he is a man from eight

country in africa and in 2001 a couple months after 9/11, the local authorities at the request came to his house and asked him to come to the police station and he drove in his own car and then disappeared. he was taken to jordan where he spent eight months and was then taken to the dog run air force base in afghanistan and then in august of 2002, he was brought to guantánamo and he's been there ever since. he is one of the kindest and funniest people i've ever met. in march of 2014 to go back to meet his family and one of his friends told me a story that captures this spirit talking about when they were children together they used to play soccer with the neighborhood children and they would sometimes get competitive and

tripped each other and in the effort to make the gold you remember in particular games he was getting competitive and and attract another child fell down and other children would keep going as part of the game he stopped and was apologizing profusely and refused until he made sure that the child was okay. and in the ten years i've known him that is exactly this. he has shown to me such kindness and although he is imprisoned in the circumstances they are horrible. what's happening with my family and their families okay, just this incredible generosity and spirit. he's unbelievably funny. one of the stories that we tell, the council asked him early on to tell about all the times he'd been interrogated in the military and the circumstances of that.

he wrote that's ridiculous, that's like asking charlie sheen to describe all of the women that he is dated. [laughter] said he's been in guantánamo since 2002. we filed a petition seeking his release. we had a hearing in front of an impartial judge and the district of columbia during which he testified for two days and was subject to cross-examination by the lawyers and at the end of that in 2010 james robinson ordered that the detention was unlawful and he should be released. he is still there because the obama administration appealed the decision and the court found that the law changed slightly in the sense that the judge issued his decision and so it sent the case back for reconsideration and it's been standing there ever since.

>> you really unloaded on the policies of new mexico and the united states and that was more than a decade ago. i bet you see these policies are even worse today than they were then. huge wall. i can tell you that. i don't know. in the book i call it politics of stupidity which came from on the ground folks. there is never the dearth of opportunity to look at those seasons and paranoia and inhumanity in this situation. every year i've consciously tried to back off a little bit because i was feeling like i had become a border boy. even when i don't want it they keep pulling me back. one story that i was proud to

get in on the for example, there's a reporter i will give her a shout out, a wonderful reporter in the san diego area going on to become nationally renowned but they call them green card soldiers. so, got the opportunity to introduce her to an editor, yes of playboy, mixed feelings about the outcome of the chance to take the story globally. then we went and did a story about these departed soldiers that came to the united states and were promised by recruiters the opportunity to get their citizenship once they served. and they went to the war for us and then guess what, he parted. there's a group in tijuana, you can look it up on facebook and talk to them if you want.

but they fought for us and were betrayed and thrown out of the country. or are thousands of them not just mexican guys, they are in europe and so forth. and every day they dress in their full dress uniforms and stand at the border watching americans go home. they hold up flags and people were really shocked i think to hear the story. i know people here are probably involved in a lot of border issues but you will know as soon as you are exposed to that world you have an ironic i. they see the irony that they are not allowed to come home until they die and then their bodies can be brought home and buried with full honors.

some of this does not make sense. so, they are lobbying to try to get permission to come home. some of them fell in ways that we maintain our kind of classic problems returning veterans have and they should have been sent for counseling. they are lobbying very hard to come home. >> amazing story. >> your most recent book listed how they ended up in the legal system and again you put a face on how the system choose people up. i wonder if you can talk about the experiences of a young woman that ends up being caught in a prostitution ring and then the imprisoned. >> she's a good case, she was brought to the united states as a 15-year-old by her aunt had custody of her. of course she never went to high school, she went to work for us.

she worked in fast food joints and for a cleaning company and she told me she had advanced in a cleaning company and had become a manager and was proud of her skills have always, always worked. she had three kids, the second and third child ended up becoming an abuser. one night he practically killed her and she fled the house with the children, applied for another cleaning job and when she got there it turned out to be an old-fashioned brothel operated out of a motel and she fell into the clutches and realized what it was and they threatened to kill her and the kids and send pictures sent pictures of the kids on her cell phone to let her know they knew about the kids so she was forced into this prostitution ring and eventually it got busted and she was charged with a crime of prostitution so she did serve a

couple months in jail in phoenix, but of course as any of the immigrants find, they do their time for crime and detention. the legal authorities handed her over and she was brought in. when i met her she was than 32-years-old and had been separated for two years. keep in mind these children are american citizens and you have to think from the point of du of human rights. the only reason i know about your lawn to end her story has a happy ending is that the university of arizona law school they found out about her and they fought and fought and they tried to get her out on compassionate release. they thought her every single step of the way and this was a

woman that had committed the crime, she was a damaged women and they wouldn't let her out of detention even as she awaited the deportation hearings even though she was the mother of small children in the and primary caregiver and even though the youngest children were with the abusive father while she was in the detention center so she lost every case all the way up to the highest levels and then she started looking at the case began as a good lawyer will do from another angle. she said this woman is trafficked on the ground of her having been an abused woman because the loyal to the turpitude ruled that out. if you are the victim of a crime. the court found she was ineligible because she was a person of bad moral character. so she fought another angle and

this is interesting because you have a c. e. under homeland homeland security, and you've got the justice department this time she went through the justice department and eventually succeeded in proving that you longer was a victim of sexual trafficking and end titled to the trafficking visa. so her happy ending is she got out, she's back with her kids, her life is going great but in terms of legal stuff, undocumented immigrants are not entitled to attorneys as they fight their immigration cases. she was end titled for the crime of prostitution but not for the immigration. she just had a good fortune to come to the attention of this pro bono attorney. there are many other immigrants i would dare to say that majority of them but never have the benefit of legal help and a social worker told me i said isn't it great she got out she

said yes it's great but i have another woman with the exact same story and she's getting deported. >> and you didn't visit them where the folks are detained. can you talk about that and it's like to go to the presence? stomach some of you may know that it's in between arizona and phoenix hidden away in the countryside by the the sign. they brought a huge chunk of land and it's full of criminal prisons. it's this gigantic piece of land it's only one of the many enterprises. they run many regular prison systems for the state of arizona and for the state of hawaii for some reason that i was interested in the detention center is the third-largest in the united states they are making money from the united states government to house these

immigrants into the more money they spent on the immigrants to lower their profits are. people are treated badly, the guards are paid not very well, they are fairly brutal to the people. they actually use solitary confinement for a disciplinary measure. and these are people but again, anybody that is in the detention center is not fair on a kernel charge. they are there any status violation on immigration which isn't considered a crime and that is why they are not entitled to a lawyer but they are treated exactly like terminal prisoners and one of the bad things about the private prison corporations is corporation says that they are very harsh with the families. they have very few family visiting hours and when people do visit, the guards treat them horrible. i could see how nasty they were to the kids that were there to visit their detained parents.

so it's a huge thing. we have 250 detention centers and a good half of them are run by private corporations who are making very good money holding these detained immigrants. >> talk a little bit about some of the experiences that he writes about in his book. >> he started writing after he first met with lawyers from his legal team and the book talks about the moment from when he's picked up two when he gets to guantánamo and the most perfect treatment that he received so from 200-32-2004, he was beaten and threatened with a threatened to bring his mother to guantánamo as the only female detainee if he didn't cooperate and they talked about what that

meant and of course you can imagine what that meant. he was deprived of all sensory said he couldn't see light. he was forced to drink water so that he couldn't sleep. he was deprived of food. it's a horrible story. his treatment there is just her were horrific. they talk about that abuse and the abuse and it was horrific. the abuse stopped but the suffering has not. he continues to be detained, thousands of miles from his family. in u.s. prisons the conditions are horrible. i don't know how it is an immigration detention but when you're convicted of a crime and incarcerated you can have contact with your family and call them on the phone when you are worried about them are

lonely that he can't do that. he is he's limited to phone calls that are set up on a schedule that is approved by the government and so one of the tragedies is that he is very close to his mother which is why the u.s. military used threats against him to try to get him to cooperate and while he was incarcerated his mother passed away. he had a phone call arranged and they were afraid to time because he's so isolated so they told him she was sick but that was it and he figured something was wrong so he sent a request to talk to his lawyers to try to figure it out and it took two weeks for the phone call to happen and ultimately we got it and i have to tell him over the phone that he'd lost the most important person to him so we are grateful he's no longer he is no longer being tortured but certainly he is still suffering and suffering should and.

>> in your book across the wider you looked at the deplorable conditions of people in the 80s and 90s if i recall. i wonder if you can talk about what it is then and have the return to see what it's like? >> one of the interesting things is that it was a slightly porous dam where the tide would catch and swirl and some of the tide of the bodies would settle in to try and try to make do and one of the places a lot of the immigrants immigrant provision would settle was the tijuana garbage dump and it was probably coming you don't know this but it's on the hill and there's another smaller hill rising out out of it and if you climb up that hill, you have the most beautiful panoramic view in san

diego into the garbage pickers sit there and watch san diego into the light did you think if i could take every american there and say you want to understand undocumented immigration come here is someone trying to find a rubber dog took to feed the children looking at disneyland 24 hours a day across the fence. it's hard to say no, stay there. it is a life of deprivation and horror, hunger. on christmas eve, 14 babies died of exposure. using that's not possible. san diego. they are on a hill and it's cold and rainy and windy and they are in bad health and they died redirect in plastic trying to stay alive. the conditions today are peculiar and we of course have

had the ear option of marco warfare which changed the ground game pretty radically for a while though realizing that it got more american visitors in disney world every year sort of self policed for a while and backed off on the violence and a lot of those garbage dump people have realized their version of the american dream and the parents picked garbage and put their kids in school and gave everything they had quite literally to put those kids in school and they learned to read and got an education and now they are not seeking garbage caregiving jobs in tijuana which is fascinating and in spite of all the kind of propaganda you hear about the simplest tidal wave of invasion, the tide is going backwards. harper's magazine reported this month 140,000 undocumented people down this year, people going back so people are staying and changing and i kind of

interesting side for me little bit more positive in some ways come at the tijuana garbage dump, a guy opened up a taco stand because there's 300 families living permanently. she changes it into an internet café. [laughter] so the garbage dump has an internet café and the kids that learned to read of course have learned computing. and so these kids were going to the talk of stand calling up youtube and seeing all their favorite bands, and in other words, information, art, culture, that can't be stopped by barbed wire. we are in a world now where the least of those are connected to

the most of us and that is something transformative and interesting. >> do we have a twitter feed for the tijuana garbage dump? >> people are now getting cheap phones cheaper phones and they do in fact do facebook. i have garbage dump people that follow me on the face. [laughter] they ask me for money. [laughter] >> you told me before that you were drawn to the stories because they remind you of the stories you wrote about your own family experiences as they wish the immigrants in the turn of the last century's talk a little bit about that. >> st. patrick's day is coming up here on thursday can and what come and what is interesting is st. patrick's day as an example of how the united states as a whole we celebrate our immigrant ancestors, everybody loves the irish now, they are great.

it wasn't so great back in the 1850s when a million desperately poor refugees from the irish famine which is more appropriately called the great hunger because england was shipping food out of ireland the whole time that the famine was going on. they flooded the shores of the united states, 1 million people. it puts you in mind of kind of what is happening and everybody says who are these people? they are catholics. that's going to threaten. so they were considered extremely alienated the majority of them actually spoke irish because they were that were just like what we see today, so many indigenous people coming up from central america and mexico. it's the people at the bottom that are the most harmed by these economic events and they had a terrible time in the united states as you know my

ancestors came before the famine and they did very poorly in philadelphia. i get my had my great grandparents, my great grandfather died as a young man leaving his children orphaned, his wife died a couple of years later, and my grandfather went to work as an 11-year-old on the streets of the adelphia. so we heard these stories my whole life and been the first time i went down to the border in 2000 and i saw what was happening in douglas and i thought my god 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 and that is the bigger crossing point in those years covered with dust and tossed out. so the united states can obviously the nation of immigrants, the pixel of

criticism from people that argue while this was all a rapacious thing but as a nation we celebrate this idea of the nation of immigrants and yet every time we treat them badly and we hate them and we see that the artist roy in the american project from the irish in the 1850s to these today that have made america not agree to any more with this kind of racial featurette -- h. read h. he was very concerned about philadelphia. there was a place called germantown. he said they are clinging onto their own language and they are not getting with the american program areas, going back to the

early days in the republic, we identified the other and reviled them. >> there's a fascinating story about how the guantánamo diaries got published. can you talk about how that whole process worked? >> when my cocounsel and another on the team first met with mohammed and he gave them a notebook that the military had provided to him in which he had written 90 pages of his story and in the months following that we sort of get letters from him until we have the full over 400 pages of the story. and under the system at guantánamo, everything a detainee rights is presumed to be classified and the only way that his team can share it with someone who doesn't have a security clearance to send it through the clearance process so we attempted to do that and the government refused to do it but the next visit to seven seven years we litigated issue in the courts trying to get the binary

out and eventually we realized if we continue to litigate and lose, the story would never come out so in 2012, we aim to the protections of the privilege and it went back to hong kong to know to be reviewed by whoever it is that reviews and was sent back to us and the first time it was sent back it was under dismayed' case and called protected. the government doesn't use it in any other circumstances other than one, wonton and what that meant is that we could share with the members of the team that didn't have security clearances but we couldn't share it with the public so we complained and send it back and then a year later we got back the unclassified version and we were able to share that with the wonderful editor of the book and he worked to consolidate the buck to maintain the language and the tone of the book. he had done an amazing job to keep that voice but that's how the book came out and why you

first got to read his story ten years after he wrote it. >> how did you get involved in the case? >> when he disappeared we had no idea where he had gone. the family was bringing food and money every day for him. his youngest brother was in germany. they were so afraid that the government was listening and that they were going to get into trouble. so they contacted the lawyer and asked him for help to find out if their family member was in guantánamo so that lawyer contacted a human rights lawyer in france who had worked with my

cocounsel so he contacted her and we have been wanting to get involved in the litigation because it was such an outrage so contrary to the american values we agreed to contact the department of defense to find out. so we did and ultimately learned that it was there and that is how we started on this long journey. >> the question from my perspective as a reporter but you've written about the border in both fiction and nonfiction elements and i'm kind of curious about the process if you can talk to but the difference between telling other people's stories versus telling stories that you are coming up with yourself. [laughter] the difference for me is that i

felt it was for me to write my day at the zoo reporting. a lot of people that write about the border or even things like, you know, the mexican-american studies, people come to a place and visit for a week or so and then they are experts and off they go and a lot of the books about the border are basically people who come and write a curious book about those people doing things that they don't have a lot of sympathy or understanding of the culture or the humanity involved so when i was doing devil's highway, i had a lot of personal adventures and i decided no it's not about me it's about everybody else's story. mark twain once said it is as

simple as writing fiction because it doesn't actually have to make sense. [laughter] telling the story as it often happens so you have to honor those things and honor those voices the best you can. as a solid example of what i'm talking about, there was a guy in the story who passed away with his son. he had come north and his son insisted on coming with him, 16-years-old he said i'm going to go by myself so the father said he said people got together because they were trying to rebuild the damaged house and a son died the son died from the heat in his father's arms and the survivors said he had a

little bit of money and he threw it into the wind and hear him out into the sun until it killed him in grief. maybe a couple of years later i got an e-mail from his nephew coming and this is something i'm sure that all of us deal with a lot but he said that our family knew how he died until i read your book and i thought i was so derived and i apologize to him as i want you to know i made the journey come i went to college and i am studying finance and i'm going to go back to the border and fix it. i want americans to know what the word went fax can accomplish if given a chance. [applause]

>> it's the ability to put a human face with all of these abilities abilities we heard about. we have 20 minutes left in to provide open to questions from the audience if folks want to line up at the microphones here we can hear your questions. >> to be i wonder if there is a comparison between what is happening in guantánamo and the soviet gulags if there's a proper comparison one can talk about. >> that is an interesting question. guantánamo is in some ways a lawless and secret place first the obama administration continued and has been an effort

in the international human rights protections that would prevent a government from torturing somebody in this argument that was suspended because of the war on terror. the other comparison would be the secrecy. when you look at the book you will still see there's reductions that start off like any way, then it's followed by pages of flak so there's worse still you cannot see. i think one of the frustrating things in the whole process has been the secrecy in my opinion the american people have a right to know what has happened in guantánamo to make their own opinions and decisions about that and it's one of the things that is so valuable about the book and one of the reasons he wrote it is a conversation with the american people about what was done and why.

they had a hearing on the second where the government would decide whether they should be released back. and i am very hopeful and i pray that he will be. if we don't have a similar dark period in history and the future. >> over here, yes. >> i'm a tribal member and also a human rights observer trying to document human rights violations not only against the undocumented migrants but also chide both members for citizens but i just want to share a brief passage you may be familiar with

this is from a victim of nazi germany. first they came for the jews and i did not speak out because i was not a jew. then they came for the communists and i didn't speak out because i was not a communist. then they came for the unionists and i did not speak 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 liberally to continue that. then they came to the native americans and i didn't 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. [applause] >> all of you are historians and the job is to provide the historic record on whatever topic you choose. based on your historic study, can any of you give us a notion of what the prospects will be over the next four or five years or the issues that you have studied and recalled?

[laughter] >> i'm sure that president trump will explain everything. >> they say journalists write a rough draft of history so that's what we are doing here today. i think things look pretty bleak. in november 2014 i went to the south side presbyterian church and they were part of the sanctuary movement in the 1980s and was the night obama was giving his speech about the deferred action for the parents of american citizens and we all watched on a big-screen tv. obama was saying these are united states children. their parents have done nothing wrong other than to be here without papers. they are contributing to our society. we are going to let them stay and give them vouchers that would be renewable.

the struggle was over and i'm always so naïve i think that's great i am so happy to hear it and of course there was a lawsuit filed in as many opponents of the initiative would do, they filed it in the district of the court and when that happened the case was filed in texas with a judge who was very vocal in his anti-immigrant views and since then okay that was a legal setback but since then i have no idea how bad it would go. when mitt romney was the presidential candidate hell many years ago. he was making things horrible for immigrants and they would self deport. at the time i said is that who we are as a people but now we

have changed that and the leading candidate says we ourselves committed to this government are going to deport 11 million people and i look with horror on that. you are identified you've are identified in 11 million people on the population to root out of the houses and their family guy you are having neighbors against neighbors, destroying families and pulling people apart and i would think that the libertarians would be a little bit alarmed about the increase in the police powers that we would unleash if that is what we were doing. i have several stories of women have pulled out of their houses by law enforcement officers pulling them away from their children and out of bed leaving crying babies behind. is this what we want?

it seems this is what a lot of them are wanting and applauding and this is what we will do. >> t. want to add anything? in terms of quantum on a modem of president obama earlier established a plan to close the prison and that plan includes continuing the process for the men that are in a definite detention speeding up the review process to see who can be released their homes to speed up the effort to get people home but for the periodic review process that doesn't clear them of the plan is to continue the indefinite detention and that is troubling. the americans trust this system had the principle to try someone if you think someone has done

something wrong you charge them with a crime get a fair trial in trial and you detain them and if they are equipped with you release them into the idea that we continue for as long as we want based on some fear that they will do something without any evidence in the fair hearing they have done something as un-american and i am concerned president obama's plan continues and given that whether it be her hearing so much in the presidential race that will get worse in the future and i hope that we starts to push back to get back to the commitments to the civil and human rights. [applause] >> i would just hope that you would pass me by. it's back to what margaret said

earlier about the focus swinging towards muslim people and i hate to see this but there's a lot of people in my community like saying god they are going to go after muslim people and sometimes it's interesting. i teach at chicago. you see that they are shifting out it is such a difficult question. they would go to the pta meetings and grabbed the parents coming in. mom wouldn't come home and they

were working with the unaccompanied minors in chicago and i would say that a vote of the evil but the trail and fire falls upon the conservatives but president obama has been big on deportation so there's something systemic about the panic. this suffering is the suffering is set off and i think that we are all maybe not realistic enough that i just can't believe that we can find some humane solution to allow people to survive. >> on the book i am not a terrorist i'm just mexican. [laughter]

>> keys detained solely under the war so the allegation as he was part of all qaeda and that is the hearing i spoke about early here in 2010 but they found in the lowest standard of the justice system that is the preponderance of evidence standard of the government couldn't show that he was part of all qaeda. >> he was in germany in the 80s and 90s and traveled to afghanistan like so many men to fight against the anti-or communist government which was at the time the pressing religious expression. the people fighting the government may be funded by the united states government with weapons and ammunition.

so he went back to. there was an oath of loyalty but it was at a the time the united states were on the same side and there is no evidence after that organization dramatically changed and "-begin-double-quote is the efforts against the united states. >> i am wondering what prospects you all see or how we can make the stories part of the baseline education our kids get a. you start to learn about the second world war before we get to high school.

it's how we can integrate the atrocities that are promulgated by our own government into the school activist and current k-12 system. it goes both ways. one faces a thought on each side to support example they have an impression the border patrol is rampaging so you can say let me tell you a story about some of the agents i know and who they really are so that's touch of

the shared humanity reaches across every gap in my opinion as long as the people trust the teller. i can say that we as writers and speakers have in a believable opportunity if not a calling to go out and talk. and i've gotten a really immense classing. he picked one of my books and i kind of lost my book tour career and talked to the kids. it's nothing about me it's just today got a chance now to have books these kids will read. i put the challenge out to my fellow writers where a school from my old neighborhood could not afford to rent a school bus

to see me speak. how much was it, like 240 bucks. so i put out each winch to my friends if you go on book tour and agree to spend the $250 on your trip on inner-city kids to help them out. [applause] i often ask to be taken to jails and detention centers and i always want to go to schools that have kids that need just a human touch. i'm going to tell you, not to harp on my own subject but you are border patrol agents need to touch, to back. we all need to be reminded that we are a family in spite of the arguments and fights we are having, there's hope. and when kids feel hopeless, which is what i'm seeing and i

know you are seeing, art reaches out to them. my job is to try to infuse art and the subsequent hope and action. you can't reach everybody that all you need to do this reach one is reach one school to feel like you've changed the world. [applause] >> that is a great line to end the session on as a matter of fact. but we are out of time. i would like to thank the panelist for a big round of applause. [applause] thanks for attending the session. your support for the festival is important. please consider becoming a friend of the festival.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] booktv live coverage of the tucson festival of books continues in just a minute. one of the panelists you just saw is the author of detained and deported to stories of immigrant families under fire

and will be joining us here in the theater at the campus of university of arizona. we will be talking about the book on immigration and some of the issues that she's found. if you want to participate, 748-8200 for those in the east and central time zone, 74882201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zone. we still have a full day of festival coverage coming up from tucson. you'll hear from two pulitzer prize winners in just a minute and that is timothy and the tj stiles, those are two of the authors that will be talking about their books. there is also a panel on demographics and politics and so if you go to booktv.org you can find the full schedule and see what you want to watch.

we are live in tucson joined by margaret, detained and deported is the name of the book. what percentage here what you say of the population is undocumented working illegal? >> an arizona overall, probably 10%. >> we are talking several hundred thousand people? >> we are 60 miles from the border. what is that turenne like? >> very difficult. arizona is a combination of desert and mountains and those are dangerous places to walk through.

the desert if you've ever experienced this summer it can get up to 115 degrees. there is no water out of their. to try to get away from the border patrol it's very cold and went through in the winter so in some places it's kind of like desert mountainous and you get those things overhanging and it's very challenging to walk through. >> on a daily basis are people trying to cross the border? >> not anymore. as we were talking in the session we have about 300 miles in the 355-mile border so that's quite a love of all. the upshot is that it is west of where we are on the reservation.

they have pedestrian barriers that keep the vehicle that allow people to walk through. so, to walk to where they are getting is about a five-day walk and you can't carry enough water for a five-day walk to keep you healthy and not dehydrated. >> so it has been effective? >> it has pushed people further into the wilderness so they go around it. but in some ways it has been to increase the rate of death and also to increase the process of the smugglers because they can charge a lot more. >> i-india can and deported were you able to talk to any coyotes? >> this book is about the people that are already here in the united states and the 11 billion undocumented we keep hearing about. what happens to those that have been in the united states and those in the childhood that get

called on a violation and independent system. >> one of the things we didn't get into much in the panelist what you call a prison industry. what is that? >> we hear about that in the discussion to be mass immigration starting in the 1980s, we began to have a policy of detaining immigrants. we didn't really have detention centers ever since the shutdown the island in the 1950s and 1980s policy changed. we were going to do detention centers, so what do you do if you suddenly start making prisons you go to the private sector because they are agile and they can do things around 1983. the first project was the immigration detention center i think it was in houston and texas and then they quickly moved into the regular prison sector also. so they are a for-profit

corporations that there is a difference between the detention centers run by them and run by the federal government. we only have 11 out of 250 detention centers and the united dates we only have 11 run by the federal government can and those are commandos are much more humane and better run than those in the private prisons. ..hey 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. it's not going well. the union is losing. they start a draft this 1863, but you want to talk about inequality? in that draft you could buy your way out for $200. so the rich never served the union cause unless they were noble, unless they had a higher calling. for $200 you could get out of the draft, or you could present a live person. so if i brought you in and said, bruce, you're going to take my place, i wouldn't have to serve. i would have paid you to be my body. this really ticked off the irish. they could not pay for this. and as they rolled the barrel in the first draft in american history, the names that came out were heir began, o'malley, you know, all these irish names. and so they rioted. i will not ever excuse the riot. it was the darkest point in irish-american history. they strung up african-americans, they burned down buildings, they nearly destroyed new york. they would have killed mara

because he stuck to the union til the very end had he not been in washington d.c. they went into a home where he was staying, took his portrait and burned it. it was -- there's no way you can excuse it. it was the darkest day, darkest week in irish-american history. but they felt they were unjustly taking the burden of what is to this day our worst war in terms of casualties. i want to talk, touch a little bit on -- i'm a military historian. it struck me that it's really interesting to see america arr as sort of -- marr as the epitome of a nonprofessional soldier, and his immediate commanding officer, william tecumseh sherman. >> sherman and marr did not get along at all. here's what happened. the irish could fight and did fight, and they quickly became known as one of the best units in the war.

robert e. lee on the other side, on is slave holders side said famously here comes those damn green flags again. [laughter] and every time they saw it, they knew they were in for a hell of a fight. they preferred to fight up close, just pure savagery. sometimes it was hand-to-hand combat as opposed to fighting long. but marr called sherman an envenomed martinet. [laughter] he had the gift of gab. sometimes it got ahead of him. [laughter] and sherman saw this quote in the newspapers and never forgot about it. sherman later wrote: i have the irish brigade, thank god they can fight. but he couldn't stand the irish at all. one of the things was culture. you have to understand that between battles the irish would stage these massive festivals. while they're at war, they would have steeplechase races, they would have theater, they would have -- they would play their pipes and their fiddles til three in the morning.

and, of course, they had a little liquor involved. [laughter] and a massive st. patrick's day events that were the toast of the union army. all the other union generals would come to. so marr tried to find some joy -- oh, and they would play hurling too. tried to find some joy in the margins of the slaughter, and all the cultural things which the irish are known for they all practiced in between these battles, and that rubbed the career officers the wrong way as well. some of them not. i mean, burnside praised them, and he loved going to these festivities. they would actually stage plays while waiting to charge richmond in the peninsula campaign. they were only a couple miles from the confederate capital. you just couldn't keep that spirit down, and that's how they kept their spirits up, was to do all these things. >> marr complained to lincoln

about sherman threatening to shoot him. do you remember? >> i don't remember the exact throat, but president lincoln said if general sherman is threatening to shoot you, mr. marr, i would take him at his word. [laugher] >> you kind of assess -- the war obviously took a tremendous emotional toll x he developed a relationship with a young private. >> right. let me talk about the relationship with his second wife. his first wife dies in child birth giving birth to their second sop. she dies at the age of 21, i think, meagher will never see his son, by the way, because he can't go to back to island. but he falls in love with a woman who is everything he is not. she's a protestant, he's a catholic. she's an anglo-saxon, he's a celt. she's this reserved fifth avenue