We Built the Wall. Eileen Truax

      Contents

       Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      PART ONE: THE BORDER

      1. The Line Between Life and Death

      2. Carlos Spector, Attorney-at-Law for Impossible Cases

3. Constructing a Border

       PART TWO: EXILE AND ASYLUM

       4. Annunciation House: The Asylum Tradition

       5. Political Asylum: Sheltering Arms, but Not for Everyone

       6. Giving Up Freedom to Save Your Life

       7. The Business of Locking Up Migrants

       PART THREE: IMPUNITY

       8. Preserving Memory

       9. Impunity

       10. Seeking Justice from the Other Side

       PART FOUR: HERE WE ARE

       11. Back to Life

       12. The Never-Ending Wave

       13. “We don’t want you here!”

       Epilogue

       Notes

       Acknowledgments

      One night in December 2012, José Luis Benavides, Kent Kirkton, and Julián Cardona came over to my house. They had barely walked in the door before Benavides said, “I have the story for your next book.” That book is We Built The Wall.

      I made my first trip to El Paso and Juárez in early 2013, and I would go two more times over the next two years. There, I discovered the generosity and clarity of purpose of Carlos, Sandra, and Alejandra Spector, and the boundless courage of those they represent, overcoming their fear, anger, and indignation to rebuild their lives, while continuing to demand justice.

      Thanks to Sara Salazar de Reyes, Saúl Reyes, Gloria López, and their families, for opening their homes and their hearts to me. To Martín Huéramo, Carlos Gutiérrez, Alejandro Hernández Pacheco, Cipriana Jurado, Sandra Rodríguez Nieto, Irma Casas, Rubén García, Arturo Bañuelas, Claudia Amaro, and Yamil Yáujar; sisters Nitza, Mitzi, and Deisy Alvarado; Rocío Hernández, Santiago García, Erick Midence, and Enrique Morones, for sharing moments from their lives, their experience, and their knowledge of both sides of the border. To Melissa del Bosque, Julián Cardona, and Marcela Turati for their extraordinary documentation work, and to my journalist colleagues at El Diario de Juárez for being a beacon of light to better understand life in the complex El Paso–Juárez region. To immigration lawyer Daniel M. Kowalsi for sharing information necessary to understand the tangled web of U.S. immigration law.

      To Diane Stockwell, I owe gratitude not only for her complicity and energy in getting this book published, but also for her sensitivity in understanding that every word spoken by a victim of forced migration has meaning. To Andrew Hsiao and the team at Verso Books, I am grateful to you for raising the voices of the protagonists in this book so they will reach those who have yet to hear them.

      Thanks to Edgar Krauss, Alfredo Corchado, and Angela Kocherga, for their encouragement at the beginning of this project, and to Willivaldo Delgadillo and Toni Piqué for their critical readings. To Jaime Abello Banfi, Natalia Algarín, and the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo’s journalistic books workshop for giving me the chance to work on the first draft of this book under the masterful watch of Martín Caparrós. To Diego Fonseca, Catalina Lobo-Guerrero, Ander Izagirre, Roberto Valencia, Claudia Jardim, Andrés Hernández, Esteban Castro, and Cecilia Lanza, for their thoughtful readings and incisive critiques.

      José Luis Benavides and Kent Kirkton have my admiration and warm appreciation for their intelligence and ability to feel injustice against others as if it were theirs—and my gratitude for making room for me in their little red pickup truck and taking me along on their tour through the borderlands.

      A few days before New Year’s Eve in 2013, Diego Sedano and I got into our car and set off for Fabens, Texas, to go talk to Saúl Reyes and his family. A year later, we drove even further, from Los Angeles to San Antonio, to talk to the three young sisters who still hope their mother will come back one day. For the stories, the tears, and the songs we shared on those days driving down Highway 10, this is Diego’s book, too.

       Introduction

      Ann Donnelly’s name echoed all over social media the night of January 28, 2017. Donnelly had been a federal district court judge for just over a year when a ruling from her court in Brooklyn, New York, made her the first judge to block an executive order by President Donald Trump.

      The executive order, signed by Trump the day before on Friday, January 27, was announced as a temporary cancellation of permission to enter the United States for citizens of seven countries: Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia, with the alleged aim of protecting the country from terrorism. Although the order defined those barred from entering by their nationality, it was widely known as the “Muslim ban,” a phrase popularized by Trump himself during his presidential campaign, because Islam was the predominant religion in the seven countries cited.

      Of the twenty-three executive