The irony of public perception
Even though Latin American drug cartels are common knowledge, there is still an ironic perception about refugees that they are coming to America to steal jobs so they can get rich. This is obviously just scarcity mentality and xenophobia coming together, because the reality of the situation is so much more dark and horrifying than those people give credit for. Luiselli's book is an attempt to add real facts to these conversations, because refugees are being treated like greedy people for just wanting to live another day.
The irony of language
Luiselli brings the misperceptions about immigrants and refugees up within the problem of language. She feels that it is ironic that the debate was framed as an "illegal immigration" debate. But, ironically, most of the people who were in those waves of "immigrants" were actually refugees. Therefore, it was a refugee crisis resulting from the decay of Latin American governments. The language of "illegal immigrant" has being used to imply a conclusion that these people are voluntarily breaking the law just to get ahead in life.
The irony of government decay
When a government becomes corrupted by business interests, there is a very thin line between morally acceptable businesses and immoral industries. In Latin America, governments decayed because, just like American politicians, they often accept bribes. The problem is that the criminal element in those countries is so well-developed that the government has stopped enforcing its rule against those gangs and cartels. Ironically, the gangs are really in charge.
The irony of coyotes
The "coyotes" are training immigration specialists who work on the black market. They are skilled laborers who are talented at crossing the US border, and they only work illegally. Therefore, the refugees are having to partner with criminals in order to survive the transit through Mexico into America, because Mexico's cartels are often unimaginably violent to foreigners. Therefore, the coyotes know that the refugees are perfectly helpless, so most of the unprotected women are violently raped along the way.
The irony of guilt
Because they are foreign, because they speak Spanish, and because of the paranoia that defines modern American political conversations, there is an irony in this book where the victims of heinous crimes are treated like villains, as if they are the guilty party. They are only guilty of decided not to be executed by violent, barbaric torturers. Certainly, any reasonable person who had been threatened by the cartels would seek asylum, but that is treated by US Border Patrol as a crime, and many refugees are kept in boxes or cells.
