The point of this book is to add real analysis to the debate about immigration, specifically the current debate about whether the US should receive refugees from countries where the governments have been replaced by cartel warlords, although the governments are still there as puppets. These countries do not seek justice for their people, nor do they offer protection or justice when a cartel uses terrorism to control the masses. Cartel violence, notes Luiselli, is among the most cruel and violent on the planet, and she reminds her readers that any analysis of immigration reform should start with those real facts.
One reminder that Luiselli makes is that to come to the US involves subjecting oneself to the control of "coyotes" who are smugglers, and therefore criminals, and who know that the women among them are essentially powerless. Therefore, 80% of all the women Luiselli translated for in Immigration Court reported they had been raped during their transit. Obviously, this is evidence of the horror of life in communities afflicted by drug lords, because women knowingly subjected themselves to this fate in order to save their lives and families.
Luiselli reminds the reader of the harsh truth about what cartels are doing in the nations south of the US. She doesn't do this in order to levy that information against the reader, as if to say, "Now you feel bad for them!" That isn't her point at all. In fact, this book does not paint these immigrants as victims. It paints them as refugees, because technically, that is the reality of the situation. To refer to refugees as "illegal immigrants" is therefore hateful, because the word refugee includes the reality of their lives before.
In other words, Luiselli's main argument is that to frame the problem as an immigration problem is missing the point entirely, because the people are not coming to America because they want to be Americans and take advantage of American benefits or whatever; they are coming here to survive, because in those nations where drug lords rule, the stakes are life and death. Yet, in America, many are treated with hostility, violence, and without their human rights, for many were caged in small boxes upon arrival.
