Stopping the Deportation Machine: One Immigrant Student's Arrest and the Kids Who Took on Washington to Get Him Back

It could happen anywhere in America. And it could happen today.

Stopping the Deportation Machine tells the true story of one undocumented student's journey to America to escape death threats, reunite with his family, and pursue an education. In the blink of an eye, Wildin Acosta's dream of becoming the first member of his family to graduate high school in the United States turned into a nightmare when undercover immigration agents in Durham, North Carolina, arrested him one morning before school, intending to deport him to his native Honduras.

This is a book about immigration, education, and community. Written by the school's journalism teacher, it also tells the story of one educator's awakening to the plight of undocumented students and a system that sometimes treats them as little more than cogs in a deportation machine. Based in part on accounts by student journalists and extensive interviews with Wildin Acosta, Christopher tells the story of how, with assistance from teachers, community leaders, and elected officials, four high school students fought all the way to Washington, DC, to get Wildin released from a government detention center and back in school.

At a time when Americans continue to be deeply divided about the plight of undocumented children, Stopping the Machine breaks through the polarized rhetoric to put a human face on a problem that resides in communities across the nation. It will make readers change the way they think about why people come to America and how our government decides who can and cannot stay.