4.5
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
ByPublisher Description
A National Bestseller • A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, PBS NewsHour, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Lunch, Christian Science Monitor, and Counterpunch • One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks • Named a Notable Book by New York Times and Washington Post • Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
“What an incredibly thorough documentation of the causes of the immigration crisis, the discussions that have been going on through multiple administrations.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
“Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is sure to take its place as one of the definitive accounts of the U.S. and Central American immigration puzzle. . . . Hopefully, those with the power to change things will listen.” —Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post
An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.
As Jonathan Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, this crisis is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture of this vast and unremitting conflict.
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the epic story of the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, delving 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.
“What an incredibly thorough documentation of the causes of the immigration crisis, the discussions that have been going on through multiple administrations.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
“Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is sure to take its place as one of the definitive accounts of the U.S. and Central American immigration puzzle. . . . Hopefully, those with the power to change things will listen.” —Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post
An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.
As Jonathan Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, this crisis is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture of this vast and unremitting conflict.
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the epic story of the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, delving 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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesEveryone Who Is Gone Is Here Reviews
4.5

Erin Marie
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“The best long form journalism I’ve ever read, easily. Comprehensive and unflinching but also compulsively readable.”

Bethany
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strafzer
Created 8 days agoShare
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“I am forever changed for reading this book.
This is a meticulously researched history of Central America and the United States from the 1970s to 2023, told from the perspective of immigrants, activists, attorneys and policy makers. Blitzer approaches the topic with warm humanity, immediately showcasing the impacts that US policy had on destabilizing these nations, often causing the immigration that it later would fight against. No US administration since Carter is blameless in how families have been destroyed and human rights have been sacrificed for political bluster.
I urge anyone to read this. I split my time with this text between both audio and hardcover versions (because they both magically were available at the same time - thanks Sacramento Public Library!) because I could not stop.
Now that the book is over, I am begging for an updated version to cover what’s happened in 2024-2025. The book hints at the creation of CECOT but was unaware of how Trump policy would jerk toward further depravity by disappearing countless people there. As of its writing, Trump 2.0 had not occurred yet, but this book brilliantly sets the stage for how we got to this point.”
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