Tell Me How It Ends

In conducting interviews with undocumented migrant children, Luiselli is able to investigate how immigration policy in America has failed to address core problems in immigrant communities, created a hostile environment for immigrants seeking pathways to asylum or citizenship, and shifted the problem away from being a burden on the United States instead of looking to address the problem’s root causes. Nowhere is this more apparent in Luiselli’s eyes than in the Obama administration’s creation of the priority juvenile docket (though it should be mentioned that Luiselli makes it clear that this decision is a continuation of decades-long problems in policy priorities). The priority juvenile docket looks on paper like a good thing for undocumented child immigrants. It drastically reduces the time it takes to process their cases, keeping them out of the limbo of living with a looming court case to decide their future. Luiselli sees in her volunteer work that this is a de facto denial of due process. Since immigration courts are civil courts, a right to an attorney is not guaranteed, and there are far too few lawyers who are willing to take pro bono cases (which is exacerbated by the lack of economic stability in undocumented immigrant communities).