Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here

An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the story of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policy makers determining their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer

Almost no one has a choice. The millions of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—although some migrants come from much farther away. Some are fleeing crime, others from hunger, and very often it will not be their first attempt to cross. They may have already been deported from the United States, but it remains their only hope of safety and prosperity. Their countries of origin have become uninhabitable. They will take their chances.

This vast and unremitting crisis did not spring up overnight. Indeed, as Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, it is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. First during the Cold War and later through the War on Terror, policymakers have attempted vainly to craft laws to discourage people from coming to the border, but in doing so, they have exacerbated the tectonic forces spurring mass migration. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans, whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence, with those of the American activists, politicians, and officials responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture for the first time.

Everyone Who is Gone is Here is an odyssey of struggle and resilience. A compassionate, gripping, and panoramic history, it announces the arrival of a major author. With astonishing nuance and detail, Blitzer tells an epic story about the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, and in doing so, delves into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future.