The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands

Dispatches from Arizona—the front line of a massive human migration—including the voices of migrants, Border Patrol, ranchers, activists, and others For nearly a decade, Margaret Regan has reported from Arizona on the escalating chaos along the U.S.-Mexico border. Undocumented migrants cross into Arizona in overwhelming numbers, making the state a test case for the nation’s border policies. In 2007, agents in the Tucson Sector alone caught more than a thousand people a day, far more than in other states. The vigilante movement had its roots here, and the state’s employer laws are the most stringent. And for years Arizona has had the highest number of migrant deaths. Fourteen-year-old Josseline was just one of thousands who have perished in its deserts.
With a sweeping perspective and vivid on-the-ground reportage, Regan tells stories of a varied cast of characters while darting back and forth across the border. She rides shot-gun with the Border Patrol, hiking with them for hours in the one-hundred-degree desert; she interviews deported Mexicans and angry Arizona ranchers; she visits migrant shelters in Mexico and camps out in the thorny wilderness with “No More Deaths” activists. Using Arizona as a microcosm, Regan explores a host of urgent issues: the border militarization that threatens the rights of U.S. citizens, the environmental damage wrought by the new border wall, the desperation that compels migrants to come north, and the human tragedy of the unidentified dead in Arizona’s morgues.